Drum sanders - shop built

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I have been considering the double drum sander. I want one. I want one that is somewhere between 26 – 36 inches wide.
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Yet I can not being myself to pay the insane money the manufacturers want for them. Two lousy drums wrapped in sand paper over a flat table which has (but does not need) a conveyor belt over a table that can raise up or down in small increments.
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Why is this worth thousands of dollars? Same questions apply to band saws. The lowest technology on the planet selling for boatloads of $$. Go figure.

Pedestle bearings and large 2" Dia., drill rod shafts ans wood circles stacked clamped and glued together along the shafts will do well for the drums and the feed rollers. They are shimmable and adjustable for angle pitch and yaw.
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I have considered the drum sander table as the largest challenge. Made from any wood it’ll change shape and be an issue. Cast iron will be expensive unless I find it in a field then, the only cost is a trip to the Blanchard grinder. But I haven’t stumbled across any free cast iron tables large enough to be worth the bother.
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So then what about Concrete? It’s stable and can be formed quite flat. It can be made in a form complete with inserts for screw points and bolsters, internal reinforcement can be added, and it can be made so thick as to be virtually indestructible. It is resistant to warping, temperature changes, and humidity. It’s weight will serve as a positive in the application as it’ll dampen vibration and provide mass to an otherwise light framework. Hells bells it’s even possible to further flatten it after the material is all cured by using a lapping material ( sand) and another flat troweld slab of concrete. It can be surfaced with Formica Laminate or epoxy. I am thinking that Concrete is the thing.
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I am considering that cast troweld concrete is the cat’s meow for a two drum sander table. Whether I add feed rollers or a conveyor belt is purely a consideration of conceit. How arrogant am I and how much do I think I’d like it? I think I’m arrogant to attempt roller feeders. And I think I’d like them rather well. A conveyor might interfere with the accuracy.
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Any one else consider building their own drum sander?

[tod evans]

cliff, you can save some money and most likely build a better drum sander then what`s on the market. time is the big factor here, that and the off the shelf items,bearings and a motor. 5hp ain`t going to sand very quickly especially driving two heads. 2" diameter pillowblocks ain`t cheap either, then if you`re using say baltic birch for your drums it won`t be impervious to the one time you feed in a piece that`s too fat, you`ll wear a groove into your drum.......food for thought..02 tod

[Don Baer]

Cliff,
A recent ussue of "Shop Notes" (vol 15, issue 86) had an article on building a thicknessing sander. It uses your table saw to power the drum. Were I to build one I'd just use a HF 2 hp 2 pole motor to power it. You might look for a copy. It'll certainly give you some ideas.

[Jim Hager]

I agree with you Cliff that the double drum sander can be built, but when??? My problem is that I don't have the time to fuss with the details of completing the sander within any reasonable time frame. I bought mine, in fact four of them before I finally got one that would stand the heat.

Building a drum sander cannot be all that difficult but it is gonna take a shop full of tools to complete the task and buying them would certainly outweigh the cost of buying one right off the shelf.

If you haven't looked at General International, I recommend that you do before proceeding. utterguys.com is where I got mine and it is a good sander, however improvements could be made. You should check out several in fact before going forward.

I would love to build one some of these days but I don't know when I'll have the time.

[Ian Barley]

Cliff

I would be fascinated to see the results but suspect that the time and effort involved would make this a more expensive route. I would also have to say that it doesn't matter how good your drum sander becomes, in important practical considerations it will lag behind a halfway decent wide belt machine.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I pulled some plans from some URLS and the OWWM site has some plans for a unit that used to be commercially available.

I found one builder's methood of truing the drum by using abrasive (face up) laying on the finished table raising the table in small increments to the drum to be marvelously ingenious.

I have been unable to find commercially available drums.

What I haven't seen is drum speed or rotation information, so I figure I'll just shoot from the hip with a few pully sizes and rotate them against the direction of the feed.

I have considered the Wood or MDF Ply disk glue up approach to a drum thinking it ought to be about 3 or more inches in diameter. I have some heavy steel 4" Dia., pipe and while I was considering using that for the drums I have pretty much discarded using that solely because of two issues: (1) Centering it on a spindle would be a bear; and (2) I can't really be sure of it's roundness as it's just pipe.

I've priced the mechanical hardware out. It's a whale of a lot cheaper than the buy-in for a large sander.

Tod: you really think a 5-HP is going to be too small?
I'd have considered 5-HP overkill. Then, 24" or 36" is a L-O-N-G slice of surface area. Still stepping the speed down and taking light passes can help with torque.

[tod evans]

cliff, when sanding 36" 25hp isn`t overkill! when i built the drive drum on my 6x48 i used 1/2" wall aluminum pipe, turned steel inserts, mounted it on the shaft then spun the whole assembly to true it. as for diameter of your drum the larger it is the less likely you`ll be to burn the paper, i`d suggest 6" minimum, if yopu opt for aluminum be sure to fill it with foam otherwise it`ll scream every time you use the sander.....02 tod

[Bill Lewis]

A couple of WW shows ago (didn't make it this year), there was a guy selling a hardware "kit" to build a drum sanding table. Basically it was all of the necessary hardware less the motor, and the table which you supply/build. All of the hardware looked as it would be available out of the Mcmaster catalog, pillow block bearings, shafts etc.. Plus he included a set of plans for the table. I think he was selling them for about $130. Not bad considering all of the design was worked out for you. It would be a good starting point for building your own.