Horizontal Disc Sander ???

[CaptainMarvel]

Anyone know of any plans - or have any ideas - about how to take this homemade disc sander idea, but have the disc sander as the flat surface ... kind of like a motorized lazy susan type deal? (hope I described that clearly enough)

The reason (and goal) for my question is because I like to build my own custom drums (as in musical instrument) and rather than attach a big ole sheet of sandpaper to a table surface (for a kind of truing surface to level out the shell edges), I would love to have a motorized horizontal disc sander onto which I could lower the shells - varying from sizes 8" diameter to 22" diameter - and sand/true them evenly with the circular sanding motion.

make sense?


Thanks for any thoughts, ideas, reference/resources you may be kind enough to share.

 

[willymakeit]

Why dont you take something like what you have and turn it 90 degrees.
You would still have to have something to hold the drums [overarm carriage] to keep them from taking off into the wild ,blue yonder.
Would it be better to have a sander that moved over the top with your drums in a fixed location. Think of a radial arm saw, fixed head that could swing right to left.
Im curious as to what you come up with.

 

[SteveCh]

Good buddy of mine is a potter. If you could snag or build a potter's wheel, then attach sanding medium [paper, section of a 24" or 18" belt material] you'd be in business. He has both the "kick" wheel type and one run from a small elec. motor. You'd probably want to set up the latter. The idea is the wheel is also somewhat of a flywheel, heavy enough to rotate evenly once up to speed. He throws beautiful pots on his, your drum material would be easier [no floppy clay].

The potter's wheel set-up is a simple stool attached to an angle iron frame with the flat wheel at the right height for your hands and the material you are dealing with.

Or you could keep the potter's wheel idea in mind and build something similar using a motor/disc thing like in your photo, only with the disc oriented horizontally. I think it would be a pretty simple thing to do, some planning and labor but no big engineering problem.

 

[tncatadjuster]

Make up a few parts then rent a floor buffer from HD for 4 hours. Flip the buffer attach sandpaper, then do your job. Return buffer, swing by and pickup a six pack to celebrate not having to store another piece of equipment for very little use.

 

[CaptainMarvel]

I've found some reference images and such to help you understand what I am talking about.


This first one is actually a vertical disc sander for the drum shells - so, if one were to go this route, it wouldn't be much of a deviation from the original idea I referenced in my initial post. (I included the caption from the site from which I found the image).

11. Trimming the ends of the drum
The ends of the shell are evened out on a special sanding machine, resulting in a perfectly true drum.

This next [video] example I think best depicts the concept I'm getting at
- you can see the idea at the 0:45 sec point in the video . . .

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO




Any further thoughts?

 

[Steevo]

That's pretty funny, using a granite surface plate to check flatness of sanded wood.
His big wheel sander looks pretty easy to build. Just gear it down so it doesn't spin too fast.