Sanding questions

[Robert Drisaldi]

Good morning everyone -
This is an elementary question, but I firmly believe in learning what works (and what does not) from others!
Related to sanding discs before gluing up. My current procedure is to use my lathe disc sander to flatten one side of all disks. Then, as I glue up I true the opposite side on the lathe. This takes forever, as I have to wait for dry time before I spin this thing at 1500 rpm. I picked up a used Jet drum sander last week. My question: Should I still flatten one side on the disk sander and then run the other sides on the drum sander? OR, as long as my discs are glued nice and flat, can I bypass the disc sander and run both sides through the drum sander?

Thanks!!

Robert

 

[mfisher]

My experience is everyone has their own method of construction a segmented vessel with some methods being similar.

Once my rings are built I
- I run the rings through a drum sander, sanding both sides to get the rings as flat as possible.
- I then use a large sandpaper disk mounted on a flat board to hand sand one side of the ring flat.
- Then glue the ring to the vessel (clamp for 10 minutes)
- on the lathe sand the upside of the mounted ring.
- rinse and repeat

imo, 1,500 rpm is way to fast for sanding on the lathe. I generally run 600-800 rpm,

 

[Robert Drisaldi]

My experience is everyone has their own method of construction a segmented vessel with some methods being similar.

Once my rings are built I
- I run the rings through a drum sander, sanding both sides to get the rings as flat as possible.
- I then use a large sandpaper disk mounted on a flat board to hand sand one side of the ring flat.
- Then glue the ring to the vessel (clamp for 10 minutes)
- on the lathe sand the upside of the mounted ring.
- rinse and repeat

imo, 1,500 rpm is way to fast for sanding on the lathe. I generally run 600-800 rpm,

Thanks. I also sand at 500-600

 

[mfisher]

Thanks. I also sand at 500-600

I go to that grit of finer for finish sanding. Not for flattening the rings for glue up.

My experience 80 grit is fine for flattening the surface between rings. imo, having the wood a bit rough between rings for glue up helps with the bonding between rings.

 

[rtaylor]

If the ring is drum sanded on both sides why is it necessary to sand again with a board?? I have made a lot of vases and never done that. The rings are always parallel to each face and true to glue on. Works perfectly, What am I missing here?

 

[Robert Drisaldi]

If the ring is drum sanded on both sides why is it necessary to sand again with a board?? I have made a lot of vases and never done that. The rings are always parallel to each face and true to glue on. Works perfectly, What am I missing here?

Good question. I just finished a glue up where each ring was sent through the drum sander with 80 grit. Everything matched nice and true

 

[Ken Sherwin]

When I tried my drum sander, I got small waves in the face I was sanding. It was not sanding as deep at the leading and trailing edges where more wood was in contact at one time. Facing then flattening with a board caused me to sand tapers with more wood coming off at the outer edge of the ring unless I was very careful. What ended up working for me was to put a flat 12" sanding disk on a live center on a 12" tailstock sitting on my 16" lathe. Yep. Vastly mismatched centers! With a raw but dry ring in a set of Cole jaws, pushing the sanding disk against the ring running at 500 rpm gives me a rigid random orbit sander with a 4" stroke, very similar to a Blanchard grinder for steel. All I have to do is turn the tailstock crank to get a dead flat ring face. When flat, turn the ring over, turn it sorta flat, and use the tailstock to get it dead flat and parallel. One of the best process improvements I've ever made but I've not seen anybody else use it. Surely I can't be alone.

 

[Ken Sherwin]