Thickness sander

[John]

I've been getting away with an auxiliary bed on my thickness planer and using a friends thickness sander but I need my own.I have some parts assembled but I'm looking for some ideas, pointers, tips advice form others that have gone down this path. 

[Kerry Krishna]

Get a firm set of plans/blueprints before you start. I am currently doing the 4th teardown of my homebuilt, mainly because I had none of the above.  

Make it as simple as possible, and the smaller it is, the easier it will go together. There are several folks on this site that have put together a small one in a single afternoon. 

  Take pictures of the whole build too, and post up here John!  

[Ned Knepp]

John,  I haven't built this but it's one that I've been looking at for ideas.  It seems to me that one of the biggest issues will be getting the platten and the plate completely square with one another. I've got a mental picture of sliding wedges under the pillow blocks to adjust this. Nothing's on paper or really even completely thought out. 

[Kerry Krishna]

Ned, what a great link! 

[Eric Steven Johansen]

Ned, I have a Grizzly 29" double drum sander that uses set screws for the pillow block adjusters. It would seem to me that if the blocks mounted through two stacked pieces of steel bar stock, say 1/2" thick or so, you could use set screws to adjust the space between the steel bars, thus adjusting the alignment of drum to plate. Accurate to the single thousandths on mine.

[Ned Knepp]

Eric, I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about. I'll look up the Grizzly sanders and see if I can get a look at them. Thanks.

[John]

I like how simple this one is.

[Ned Knepp]

There's a lot to be said for quick and simple but in the long run,  I think I might be concerned that this will not handle the pressure on the deck. All of the designs I've seen have been built with a very solid base and a very thick plate. It affords less deflection and less vibration.  That said, if this one does what you want it to do, why not?

[George Roberts]

I thought this looked interesting:

http://www.stockroomsupply.ca/shop/drum-sanders/24-x-4-v-drum-the-w...

George

[Kerry Krishna]

I have seen some demonstrations of this tool online. It looks like this tool would be more for finishing and semi-finishing than making sawdust off of a piece of wood. It only does 10 thou  a pass. That said,I still would not mind owning one! 

[John]

I like that it's benchtop and simple, dadoes and thicker stock would make it more robust. 

[George Roberts]

I remembered that Grit Laskin had plans for a thickness sander in Fine Woodworking several years ago.  Turns out that it was in 1990.  I believe that there were some subsequent updates and improvements, as well.  Found this rather than fighting my was back through stacks of old FWW:

https://www.finewoodworking.com/item/26826/updated-build-your-own-p...

George

[Steve Williams]

I like it because it looks light enough to haul outside for use. ("redneck" dust collection system)