Thickness Sander

I have begun work on the thickness sander. Actually, I had begun work a couple of weeks ago on the drum. It began as scraps of birch ply (left over from the apothecary cabinet and the shop cabinets you see hanging in the background) cut to 4x4. I drilled the 5/8th inch hole for the arbor in the center of each and glued them up on the arbor in three sections, then glued up the three sections. MDF would, perhaps, have been better, and if I were buying the materials specifically for the sander, I would have gone with MDF, but the ply, I think, will do and eliminated a number of scraps that would have otherwise cluttered my shop. Once glued up, I then nipped the corners off the squares, as close to the finished diameter as possible, then set up my router lathe.

It too was made from scraps around my shop and consisted of two end pieces, slightly wider than the widest spot on the now octagonal drum. I drilled a 5/8 inch hole about an inch down centered on the end pieces to support the arbor. For the sides of the lathe, I ran a quarter inch groove along the length, then screwed the sides to the end pieces so the groove was about a quarter inch above the drum. I then made a base for my router out of quarter inch hardboard, sized to slide in the two grooves, then rounded over the drum by sliding the router back and forth in the groove as I turned the drum beneath it. The process is a bit tedious, in part because you don't want to crank the router down and take too big a bite, and would perhaps have gone more quickly had I cut circles instead of squares, but my bandsaw is still out of commission from the flood in Chicago. I received the motor, but it did not come, as I had anticipated, with the mounting plate, so now I am awaiting that. Altogether an exercise in patience.