Shopsmith Forums

I finally got around to doing a video today for those who wanted to see my little sander up and running. It also covers the often asked question about how you hand feed one of these without catastrophic accidents involving the subject piece becoming a lethal projectile.

Disclaimer: I’m no video producer and I didn’t use an editor so you will get to laugh at me a couple of times…... OK all the time maybe.

There are actually three clips in the video. They all involve sanding flat some marquetry I’m working on at the moment. The first , after showing you the subject piece with shiny glue areas showing, covers initial setup of depth. It’s real rocket science. You raise the table and watch the gap. When you touch with a bit of pressure, you’re there. I then go on to take three passes at that depth and the piece is flat. You should be able to see the difference even in this bad video.

The second segment covers an incremental increase. It is so easy. I take three passes on this piece (there are four identically cut pictures) and decide it isn’t quite there yet so I raise the table 1/4 turn on each side and re-lock the table before taking three more passes. at this point it is just about perfect. That’s six passes on a piece of marquetry 1/32” thick to start with and it is still more than 1/2 there.

The last segment just shows how easy it is to change grit. You just change drums. It’s actually a whole lot easier than I made it look this time. Call it stage fright or camera butterflies.

Throughout the process I’m feeding with a push board of 1/4” MDF and I’m pushing with my thigh so that the weight of my body is controlling the feed. This gives far better control than you can get pushing with your hands. When I first started using this sander I was getting little ripples and the odd groove from uneven feed. Now with this push board and this method there is no sign of them at all.

You may notice that dust is another thing there is no sign of at all.

Edit: There appear to be four segments. You can disregard the third, I deleted it but it wouldn't go away.

That’s it. Enjoy the video.

Paul M

shipwright wrote:I finally got around to doing a video today for those who wanted to seemy little sander up and running. It also covers the often asked question about how you hand feed one of these without catastrophic accidents involving the subject piece becoming a lethal projectile.

Disclaimer: I’m no video producer and I didn’t use an editor so you will get to laugh at me a couple of times…... OK all the time maybe.

There are actually three clips in the video. They all involve sanding flat some marquetry I’m working on at the moment. The first , after showing you the subject piece with shiny glue areas showing, covers initial setup of depth. It’s real rocket science. You raise the table and watch the gap. When you touch with a bit of pressure, you’re there. I then go on to take three passes at that depth and the piece is flat. You should be able to see the difference even in this bad video.

The second segment covers an incremental increase. It is so easy. I take three passes on this piece (there are four identically cut pictures) and decide it isn’t quite there yet so I raise the table 1/4 turn on each side and re-lock the table before taking three more passes. at this point it is just about perfect. That’s six passes on a piece of marquetry 1/32” thick to start with and it is still more than 1/2 there.

The last segment just shows how easy it is to change grit. You just change drums. It’s actually a whole lot easier than I made it look this time. Call it stage fright or camera butterflies.

Throughout the process I’m feeding with a push board of 1/4” MDF and I’m pushing with my thigh so that the weight of my body is controlling the feed. This gives far better control than you can get pushing with your hands. When I first started using this sander I was getting little ripples and the odd groove from uneven feed. Now with this push board and this method there is no sign of them at all.

You may notice that dust is another thing there is no sign of at all.

That’s it. Enjoy the video.

Paul M

Thanks for the post. Very slick sander.

Paul,

I have several questions:

1) What are the drums made out of?

2) There appears to be three threaded rods coming out of the bottom of the table. What are they for, how are they attached to the table, and how do you raise and lower the table?

3) Since the unit sets on the way tubes, how do you verify that the drum is parallel to the table?

Great unit, by the way. Since it's beginning to warm up, this is a project I hope to tackle soon.

Sincerely,

Ron309753

Ron309753 wrote:Paul,

I have several questions:

1) What are the drums made out of?

2) There appears to be three threaded rods coming out of the bottom of the table. What are they for, how are they attached to the table, and how do you raise and lower the table?

3) Since the unit sets on the way tubes, how do you verify that the drum is parallel to the table?

Great unit, by the way. Since it's beginning to warm up, this is a project I hope to tackle soon.

Sincerely,

Ron309753

All of this is covered in the blog on Lumberjocks but here are some quick answers.
1) You can make the drum out of what ever you like. It makes no difference to the design. Mine are ABS because it was cheap and it works.

2)The two outer rods are the side elevators so that you can really fine tune the side to side thickness which is really important for what I'm doing with it.
The center one is another elevator so you can raise the whole table with only one screw when extreme accuracy isn't necessary. I've removed it. It turns out that the table rises exactly parallel if you just raise it with one of the side elevators. The side locks stabilize the table during operation.

3) Since the lathe is already parallel to the way tubes, the only thing you have to do is make the base structure accurately. If you miss, you can glue little veneer shims in the recesses where the low side rests on the way tubes. Again, this is covered in the construction blog.

Thanks for your interest. It is a really cool little sander.

Paul M