A brilliant idea or disaster waiting to happen?

[Jason Christenson]

A friend and I are attempting to build a poker table from a plan we bought from Rockler. (We are in way over our heads!) We are using a sanding drum on a bench top drill press to fine tune a template made of hardboard but we don't quite have enough clearance to reach everything, we keep running into the column. Can I put the sanding drum in my variable speed router under my router table to finsh this up or am I about to kill myself and some of my coworkers?

Jason

[Hoa Dinh]

What speed is your DP at when you use it as a sander? 1500 rpm max.

What's the minimum speed of your router? I bet it's no less than 10000 rpm.

I'm not sure the sanding drum is built for that kind of speed. I wouldn't do it.

[Chad Pater]

Hoa is correct. Do not attemp this. Maybe try a hand held drill? You could build a jig to keep this square? Just an idea.
Chad

[Jay Knepper]

Not only is using a sanding drum in a router deadly-dangerous as Hoa and Chad have mentioned, it will be very hard to "fair" your template shape. It's hard enough to do on an oscillating spindle sander.

I would hand sand it.

[John Hart]

Yep...You're about to kill yourself. The first thing that's going to happen is the rubber on your drum is going to soften and melt, then when you apply more pressure to compensate, your sanding surface will disintegrate. After you remove the shards of garnet, rubber and wood from your skin, and buy a new drum, I would agree with Chad and rig up a jig to my hand drill...or just rasp it and smooth it by hand.

[lou sansone]

A friend and I are attempting to build a poker table from a plan we bought from Rockler. (We are in way over our heads!) We are using a sanding drum on a bench top drill press to fine tune a template made of hardboard but we don't quite have enough clearance to reach everything, we keep running into the column. Can I put the sanding drum in my variable speed router under my router table to finsh this up or am I about to kill myself and some of my coworkers?

Jason

hi jason
the problem that you are running into on the drill press is anoying. I do not have an easy solution for you, but in one of my upcomming shop tours I will be showing you all a special drill press that does not have those same limitations.
Have you thought of an OSS to do what you want?

regards lou

[Jason Christenson]

hi jason
the problem that you are running into on the drill press is anoying. I do not have an easy solution for you, but in one of my upcomming shop tours I will be showing you all a special drill press that does not have those same limitations.
Have you thought of an OSS to do what you want?

regards lou

I have thought of one. I just don't have one.

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Are we thinking PC 121?
Daniel

[Jason Christenson]

I just took a look at a Wilton sander at Menards for $99.99. Worth it or not?

[Bruce Page]

I just took a look at a Wilton sander at Menards for $99.99. Worth it or not?

$99.99 would be money well spent compared to the emergency room bill you’ll get from using the router. I’m glad that you posted the question before trying it!