Shopsmith Forums

I'm considering trying to do some basic marquetry. I have a scroll saw, so I think the next thing would be a method of making some veneer. From what I've been learning, I can resaw some thin pieces, but then I will need to plane or sand them to a uniform thickness.

I've seen several different ways of doing this, either with a sled for the planer or a thickness sander. Because of limited space and budget, I won't be buying dedicated thickness sander. And, I'm not sure how far I'll go with marquetry.

There are three options that I'm considering; a sled for the planer, a shop made thickness sander, or a sanding drum setup. I found the drum setup in PTWFE p.228. It's just a lathe turned wood drum that you attach sandpaper to. The drum runs off the lathe and the work slides on the main table, which is raised and lowered to adjust thickness. Wanted to see if anyone has used this method.

Our member, Shipwright, does marquetry, This is the Shopsmith powered drum sander that he made.
https://www.lumberjocks.com/projects/57158

and a video showing it in action.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf2qfOm6bDg[/youtube]

and a link to his Marquetry School
http://thecanadianschooloffrenchmarquet ... uctor.html

Thanks. I’ve spent a lot of time reading shipwrights posts; here and at lumberjocks. His sander plan is one of the options I’m considering.

My Wife does some of this kind of work. We decided to take the easy way out and purchase the veneer. It is cheaper than making it yourself, and the work is done for you.
We get the veneer from Rockler.
https://www.rockler.com/domestic-3-squa ... neer-packs

The short answer is, yes, it will work...sort of. You will need first to get the workpiece as close to the final thickness as you can with bandsaw, hand plane, belt sander etc. and use the sanding drum for removing just the last little bit. It is not a thickness sander. But, if you avoid the temptation to try to remove too much material with each pass and if your feed rate is slow and even, the sanding drum will do a nice job. I have cleaned up the thin sides of small boxes with it with success. Be prepared for a lot of dust in the air, though. You will need to have some sort of dust collector mounted right over the drum. Since the drum is not contained in a shield or a box of any sort, the amount of very fine sanding dust thrown into the air is considerable.

I have never tried making thin veneer with this drum. It does work well in some situations, but I think the suggestions made here to simply buy the veneer you need are worth thinking about.