Shopsmith Forums

I hate to admit this but I've had two Conical Discs and never used them. I have had them for years. This year I'm going to put them to use but for what???

Gotta admit, I haven't used the 2 that I have either. However, the initial one I obtained to use with the sharpening jig for the Lathe tools. (It will be used soon for that purpose>) The second I picked up for a song at an auction. I plan on using a different Grit.

the conical disks can be use much like a flat one. The table needs to be tilted, though.
I made the thickness sander that was in one of the SS videos. It uses the conical disk.

I used the conical disk to flatten and true the aluminum fence on my porter cable miter saw. It came from the factory warped and I failed to have it replaced when it was under warranty, and now the porter cable fence parts are not available. Typical built in obsolescence from PC that makes you appreciate Shopsmith even more! I had to build a jig to hold the PC fence parts as I guided them through the SS conical sander. The conical disk worked great, the porter cable saw is now better than new!

I remember reading somewhere that the Conical disc really excelled at a number of tasks but I can't find where the article/post was. I've got the two I have glued up and ready to test/learn what these things can do. Going to need to figure out a better dust collection. I have the 330 DC but I'm sharing my garage with 3 cars so if I dust the place I will be hearing about it from my clean nick wife!!

I also have two, and one of them has 150 grit paper installed. It does a great job sharpening jointer and planer knives.

The other is destined for jointing/edging figured woods. But ever since I got the machinery, my knives had been doing a great job on whatever wood that I fed them. Then a few weeks ago, I decided to pull a 20-year old osage orange log out of the wood pile, and slice it up to make a mallet head. (That wood is about as hard as granite, and it NEVER rots.) Bandsawing went fine. Jointing went fine. But planing that stuff was an exercise in bullet-speed chip-outs. Which is pretty weird. According to Google, the jointer knives may have worked better because they were a bit duller!

Anywhooo ... your conical sanding disk can put a beautiful smooth flat edge on hard or figured wood that is just too gnarly to work with a spinning knife.

Joint Highly Figured Woods Without Tearing or Chipping

Produce Glue-Quality Edges on Sheet Goods

Shave End Grains to Length with Glass-Smooth Results

Achieve Superior Sharpening Results on Planer and Jointer Knives

I use mine quite often for edge sanding, slick and simple.

As I recall there was a lot of talk about being used as a Jointer??