A successful sanding idea

[SceneryMaker]

My drum sander leaves little ridges in the glue faces of rings if it hits a hard or soft spot in the wood. No problem, right? I can clean the rings up on the 12" disk sander. No, I can't. Without equal pressure all around the ring, they come out with a taper, making the vase wobble. I put the ring to be sanded in the chuck and the sanding disk in the tailstock to maintain equal pressure and that worked but it wore and loaded up the paper because the ring was only rubbing in one place.

Now for the idea. I got an adapter shaft to put my sanding disk into my live center and offset it from the lathe centerline. Now when the ring spins, it drives the sanding disk, sweeping across most of the paper and leaving it exposed each revolution to clear the sawdust.

It's working great.

[Dusty Workshop]

Is wood ring only contacting the sanding disk at the top (center line of the sanding disk)?

[SceneryMaker]

Is wood ring only contacting the sanding disk at the top (center line of the sanding disk)?

No. The face of the flat sanding disk is parallel with the chuck face so the entire ring contacts the sanding disk at the same time, once it gets sanded flat. The ring is offset to the disk so the disk rotates slower than the ring, giving the same effect as a random orbit sander.

It's cool that a 1953 Shopsmith sanding disk can work so well with a 2017 Nova lathe.

[Dusty Workshop]

I assumed so, but from the camera angle it looked like there was a gap at the bottom

[SceneryMaker]

Better angle?

[Dusty Workshop]

It is a really cool idea

[crokett™]

that is a very cool idea.  I noticed you spared no expense on the wood that the live center is mounted into.  And I mean that literally, no expense.  

[SceneryMaker]

that is a very cool idea.  I noticed you spared no expense on the wood that the live center is mounted into.  And I mean that literally, no expense.  

This came from the same tree. Like you said, no expense.

[crokett™]

My apologies. In the pic it looks like a pice of 2x4, which is what I would have used. I did not mean to offend. It is a very clever bit of engineering.

[SceneryMaker]

My apologies. In the pic it looks like a pice of 2x4, which is what I would have used. I did not mean to offend. It is a very clever bit of engineering.

Apology refused because it WAS a plain ole pine 2x4 from the scrap bin.



Both times!

(I would put a laughing smiley here but I can't get to them with the new forum software.)