Using Sanding Disk on lathe

fiatben · Post by **fiatben** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:09 am

I may be asking a weird question, but is there any reason a person couldn't drill a few holes in a sanding disk and use it for a faceplate? What alternatives have you guys seen for a faceplate, homemade or otherwise, as it seems buying one on evil-bay or otherwise is expensive for a guy who does not have a fulltime income.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:42 am

fiatben wrote:I may be asking a weird question, but is there any reason a person couldn't drill a few holes in a sanding disk and use it for a faceplate? What alternatives have you guys seen for a faceplate, homemade or otherwise, as it seems buying one on evil-bay or otherwise is expensive for a guy who does not have a fulltime income.

Makes sense if you do not mind the holes later when sanding. It may cause the disc to warp, but I doubt it will. The larger size will get in the way.

shipwright · Post by **shipwright** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:02 pm

Face plates are usually chosen to be smaller than the piece being turned. You may find that the size of the sanding disc, ie: larger than your piece, represents at least an inconvenience and at worst a danger. It will also limit the angle at which you can approach the left hand edge of your workpiece with a chisel.

Paul M

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:30 pm

I wood think the sanding disk wood not be thick enough for that purpose. Also what Shipwright said about the dangers and lack of access.

edflorence · Post by **edflorence** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:28 pm

I don't know what sort of torque turning might put on a faceplate, but I can imagine the screws being pushed sideways pretty hard during turning. I see the holes in the disk getting deformed as the screws are pushed sideways. In the best case this would eventualy spoil the ability of the faceplate to keep a piece centered, and in the worst case could result in a pretty dramatic failure. The thickness of a "real" faceplate is probably there to resist these sideways forces. I would want to know a little more about what forces the faceplate will be dealing with before I tried using a (relatively thin) sanding disk as a faceplate.

Just my thoughts.