Thickness Sander for Segmented Work Question

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Has anyone used the Grizzly G0459 12" Baby Drum Sander for segmented work or know if it is precise enough to use for that purpose?

[Robert McGowen]

Hi Chris,

It might just be me, but here is my take on it. I have a Jet 10-20 drum sander and a 12" Jet disc sander. I try to flatten the smaller rings with the disc sander as it is quite fast, but you have to before careful that you do not get the faces out of parallel. It was usually so small that you can not see it, but once mounted on the lathe, it is quite obvious from the rotation. I use the drum sander (back to your question ) to SMOOTH out the larger rings. They might look flat to the naked eye, but I then get a pencil and make some marks on the surface of the ring. I then hand sand them on a piece of 80 grit that is glued onto a piece of glass. It is quite obvious when you look at the ring after a few strokes and half of the pencil marks are gone and the other half are untouched, that they are not coming out of the sander perfectly flat and smooth. It might work on dark wood, but on lighter wood, the joints would show for sure without the hand sanding. One other thing to consider is that once your rings get smaller than a certain point, you can't run them through the drum sander anymore without making a jig or some hold-down device. So, I would think that any sander would work to get it smooth enough for *FLAT* () work or the initial flattening of the rings for segmented work. I would most likely go for price and service above all. If I could only have one sander though, it would be the 12" disc.

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Thanks Robert, I have a 12" disk but everything I read on segmented work talks about the drum or thickness sander. I just don't want to get started into this and mess it up. Remember, this is the guy who cuts off his fingers. I have been reading Malcolm and Ray Allen's books. Maybe I'm starting too advanced. I really want to get into this but right now it seems really overwhelming. So are you saying that a drum/thickness sander is not necessary?

[Robert McGowen]

So are you saying that a drum/thickness sander is not necessary?

Necessary? Depends on if your wife is reading this or not.

It will certainly make one side smooth faster than doing it by hand. It is just not the perfectly smooth, ready-to-go, segmented have-to-have that you might think that it would be, IMHO. (Hence, above post) Once one side is flat, you can glue the ring on and flatten the other side on the lathe.

As I am sure you know, there are 100 different ways to turn a bowl, so there must be 1000 different ways to MAKE a bowl and then turn it.

Just for discussion though, I have not found any information in Malcolm's book that was not useful. I went through about 10 different ways to glue the rings together before I just screwed a pole to the ceiling and used a pipe clamp turned around backwards as he suggests. Once you get used to the way the pipe moves when you apply pressure, it is the easiest thing in the world to do.

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Thanks Robert!

[Paul Engle]

Christopher,
There's a lot of experts out there who have done way more than me but this is what I have found so far:

I have a 16-32 drum sander and stationary belt sander with 8" disc . the smaller pieces will not travel under the drum sander safely if under 6" dia , as you need 6 inches to span the in/out pressure bars or the piece will / may eject it self in a horendous manner or scrub the ring on the edge...my guess is any drum sander will work , you make have to tweek it to get it sanding flat, this is the critical part .when i glue up two's that are small I use a technique from the hydrualic shop of figure 8'ting the part on my belt sander ( not running ) once the ring is complete and cured, also I found the disc to be way to agressive if you are not careful , especally on the smaller pieces so I dont use mine much. If you get em dead flat / paralell using the drum sander before you chop out the segs then you have a fighting chance , being carful to register one side of the segment flat and doing the fig 8 motion on the oppsite side once they are glued up, complete and cured. Also You could build a clamp tray to hold the ring to run thru the drum sander , I am just finishing up my bigest segment piece and am going to build a tray to hold small rings, (as I have been doing large vases etc)for the drum sander.If I am careful with the glue and getting one side as flat as I can , ( using 1/4" tempered glass plate to glue them on ),then I dont need much gettng em flat and paralell doing the lapping motion on the bs. Like others said if you dont, it really shows on the lathe.This works for me. I am use to doing a lot of hand work so it feels like " old home week " when doing these this way....

[Robert McGowen]

Paul and Chris,

If you have not tried to glue two halves at once, it works great. Put glue on each piece so that you have two halves with no glue where the halves would connect. Put a small dowel, I use a 1/4" hardwood dowel, where the halves would meet and tighten with a clamp. You will end up with two halves that you can sand and glue together. The dowels take out any misalignments that you might have and you only have two glue steps to make an entire ring.

Robert

[Richard Madison]

Seems like with a drum sander you might get "snipe", just like you get (usually the leading edge) with a thickness planer. A Longworth chuck or flat disc on faceplate with 2-stick tape will hold a ring while it is turned and sanded flat on one side. To get second side flat, of course, must glue to workpiece on lathe, turn and sand flat.
Richard in Wimberley

P.S. Oops, there seems to be something missing.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Christopher, a drum sander is a luxury, but a good disc sander is an absolute necessity. I do this stuff for a living and I would give up my drum sander much quicker than my disc sander. In fact, if I had to give up my disc sander, I’d have to give up what I do. Having said that, I do use my drum sander extensively to flatten rings, even small rings by mounting them on a carry tray. However, I rarely glue surfaces together straight from the drum sander. A quick swirl on my large 20” disc sander almost always precedes gluing. By lowering my disc sander table, I can quickly flatten up to about a 17” diameter ring and have it ready for glue. I also continuously lathe-flatten the last ring that was joined to the vessel assembly as I build my turnings.

I’ve probably convinced dozens of segmenters to acquire a 20” sander (never got a kick back). For those that are really into segmenting, there’s no comparison with a 12” disc sander – but it’s a lot of money for the occasional segmenter.

[Paul Engle]

snipe comes from not having the pressure rollers adjusted correctly. In 12 yrs with my 16-32 ds I have never had snipe since setting it up the first time. snipe is common on planners and as with most portable ones the infeed and out feed rollers are factory set and are not adjustable and there for suffer from either one having more pressure than the other which causes the looser one to let the wood " move up " when the other one comes in contact with the wood.and conversely the tigher one would push the wood down causing a shallower cut after ( about 2 inches in is normal or usual distance for the roller/s to the contact surface of the drum/cutter), a cure for this is rollers on the table ( not the head) adjusted to even out the distance of the pressure rollers to stock making them dead even. On the performax these are adjustable ( in the head)for height and preasure and the manual shows you how to tell which one to adjust to get rid of snipe .( no , not cut 2 inches off the end where the snipe is ) snipe on the out feed side means the infeed roller is too tight or is set too close to the table and or not even with the outfeed roller,when the board gets to the outfeed roller, being looser it allows the infeed roller to try to tilt it up ( the drum trying to " lift the board"causing the board to rise into the drum/cutter and cut more of the board, and viceaversa. If the piece does not span both rollers at some point ( and cutter or drum) then you get kick back or scrubing . usually kick back with a planner and scrubing with ds.

[Richard Madison]

Malcolm,
What company sells the 20" disc sander? Have never seen one in anybody's catalog. You really deserve a commission, plus a small discount for each buyer that mentions your name.
Richard in Wimberley

[David Walser]

Malcolm,
What company sells the 20" disc sander? Have never seen one in anybody's catalog. You really deserve a commission, plus a small discount for each buyer that mentions your name.
Richard in Wimberley

Here's a link to Harbor Freight's 20" disk (for $620!):
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45725

Here's a link to Laguna's 20" disk sander (for $795):
http://www.lagunatools.com/platinumsander1.htm

I'd thought I'd bracket the market...

[Bob Opsitos]

What company sells the 20" disc sander? Have never seen one in anybody's catalog.

Rich, as far as i know Powermatic is the only game in town for a 20" disc sander. Check the powermatic website or osolnik machinery. It's big money for a big metal disc attached to a motor, but if you need it you need it.

Bob

[David Walser]

Well, I thought I'd bracketed the market when I linked to Harbor Freight and Laguna's 20" disk sanders. Here's a link to Powermatic's sander:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...osim/wmtogr-20

I won't tell you the price because it's obscene!

It's cheaper (but still R rated) at Woodcraft:

http://woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=61072

And, no, I have no idea why I find this fascinating.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Richard, there are several companies that make them. They are all very similiar. Here's a link to the Woodworker's Supply site:

http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/search.exe?BP=1

If you type in disc sander and then scroll down, you'll find a 20" Powermatic.