My sanding station has arrived!

[Grahame Myers]

The Luthiers Friend Sanding Station I ordered from SM arrived yesterday, and I'm very pleased with it up until now. I've been playing around a bit with scrap wood first to try everything out. I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations regarding the spindle speed to set on my pillar drill. In the instructions it says "maximum 2500rpm", but what actual speed gives the best results? I've tried 900rpm and 1500rpm too, but didn't notice an awful lot of difference.
All you guys with longer experience with the Luthiers Friend: what would you recommend? I have a fine piece of Indian Ebony that I want to make into a fretboard for a fretless bass, and I want to give myself the best chance of not screwing up :-) , before I start.....

Grahame

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

From my sanding experience (I have similar equipement, but no the stewmac thing), I would tell you to use the fastest speed, and slow it down if you get any burns.

[Rick Gentry]

Good Morning Grahame. It would be nice to see a video or stills of your new tool in action.

[Grahame Myers]

Well, here ya go, a few pics to show you what it looks like in action. The wood being sanded is a bridge blank, I forgot to take pictures of the ebony fingerboard being sanded, due to the shock when I nearly screwed the job up: I found out that my old drill press wasn't accurate enough to use with the sanding station, it had too much play in the quill shaft. And I ended up sanding some nice waves into the ebony blank. Luckily I noticed what was going on in time, and stopped before it was too thin. As you can see in the pictures, I now have a shiny new drill press :-) Notice also my high-tech Duct tape solution for the vac connection adapter, made nessasary due to the fact that the connection that comes with it is 2", and I had to somehow reduce it down to 36mm for my shop vac. So off to the DIY store to buy some sink drain fittings (which are still in inches here in Germany, go figure). Like we used to say in my days as a tour roadie: Gaffa tape fixes everything :-)
I'm very pleased with it otherwise: It's built to last, really nice work, and well worth the money. The German customs were having a good day last week, it only cost €29 in customs duty, less than I thought it would be, so the total costs weren't as bad as I thought. With all the things you can do with it, it'll pay for itself in no time at all

Best

Grahame

[Mike Kolb]

And...say, isn't that a fresh pack of Lucky Strike ciggies tucked-under there for good luck?!

[Grahame Myers]

Well seen! There are two things that always need to be on hand when I work: Coffee and Lucky Strikes :-) Works for me, although being a smoker is getting increasingly politically uncorrect here in Germany. I'm an old fart pushing 55, and I love being politically uncorrect, it's great fun fun freaking the health fanatics out :-)

Best

Grahame

[Mike Kolb]

Grahame, you're preaching to the choir.... I also am a caffeine/nicotine addict. My pack of Kools is always tucked in my shop apron pocket (solely to prevent them from ending-up in photographs:)

My rule of thumb, however, is never to smoke in the shop or the house.... the missus wouldn't stand for it in the house and the customers would probably object to the odor in their cases. In any event, having to go outside (even in the Oregon rain) is a chance to take a small break and (as odd as it may sound) get some fresh air for a minute.

Let's hear it for old farts and bad habits!

[Donald A. Fortune]

Got my vote Mike :-)

[Eric Steven Johansen]

Mike, Me and my Swisher Sweets spend alot of quality time together in the great outdoors next to the shop. If it weren't for them and my Jack Russell terriers I'd rarely get outside.....

[Donald A. Fortune]

Hi Grahame- Gee ya kno I wish they had something like that when I made mine - looks the same but isn't as fancy I like that one tho and maby I will get one here soon
Peace, Donald

[Mike Kolb]

I've had the Luthiers Friend sanding station for about 2yrs now, and --while it does everything exactly as advertised-- I've come to the conclusion that it needs to sit in it's own dedicated drill press to actually get used. There are times when it'd be handy to make 'a this or a that' but the setup, calibration and tear-down seems to be more work than simply hand-carving and sanding the part.

But this probably says more about my laziness that it does about the product itself. So just discussing this has redoubled my resolve to hit Craigslist and find a medium-sized bench drill press that can be dedicated to the unit. Or, it's just an excuse to get another %$# drill press :)

[Ron Frazier]

I have a vertical belt sander and I have mine , home made attached to the table and I use it a lot. The things needs to be fed through evenly or it will be wavy.