Electrifying a Radius Dish Sander

[Paul Montgomery]

This is a luthier tool and I know it’s not for everyone, but I’m thinking that there might be some clever people here who just might find their own use for it.

[kjbllc]

i took a old floor sander put a 18" piece of glass round table top works like a charm

[Jonathan Ward]

Here's mine. 5Hp Baldor 3-phase motor run through a variable frequency drive. The bearings for the top platform are roller tappets from a Chevy small block, welded upside down to a plate. Slight eccentricity in the rotation. No more "driving the bus" around here.

[Paul Montgomery]

Here's mine. 5Hp Baldor 3-phase motor run through a variable frequency drive. The bearings for the top platform are roller tappets from a Chevy small block, welded upside down to a plate. Slight eccentricity in the rotation. No more "driving the bus" around here.

Cool. Looks like a real meat eater!

[sunburst]

Mounting like a face-plate on the outboard end of a lathe works well (if we have a lathe), otherwise horizontal mountings, like these pictures, benefit from short "walls" so that the disc is in a shallow box with a dust collector attached.

[Richard500]

All nice solutions. I can’t remember what the application was, but my zero shop space version just mounts an aluminum faceplate on a stem that fits the spindle bore in a (10”) metal lathe and goes on the outboard side, gripped inboard by the chuck. People who do turning on wood lathes for large bowls etc., often use the outboard side, and the plate can easily be trued in place. Absent a lathe, the otherwise malicious radial arm saw can also be used, and render sides parallel as well.
Although it never was used, when my real shop had a 39” swing vertical Bullard lathe, 25,000 lbs. (the smallest Bullard!), we could have been doing string basses with no trouble at all. Instead, it has spent the last hundred years making very large flanges.

[Jonathan Ward]

Mounting like a face-plate on the outboard end of a lathe works well (if we have a lathe), otherwise horizontal mountings, like these pictures, benefit from short "walls" so that the disc is in a shallow box with a dust collector attached.

My experiments with dust collection on this machine were disappointing. I run an air scrubber nearby, and then clean up the sander with a big Shop Vac every couple of minutes. The upside is that 80-grit sanding media running at low RPM makes pretty big sawdust that doesn't travel much.

[j. condino]

I use my giant Oliver patternmaker's lathe.

[David Houchens]

The guy on YouTube really needs to chop off those corners. That looked like a sore elbow in the works.

[sunburst]

The guy on YouTube really needs to chop off those corners. That looked like a sore elbow in the works.

So, I watched the video after reading this. I didn't realize he was spinning that whole square piece! Getting a sore elbow would be getting lucky with those dangerous corners spinning around!

By the way, while I have used spinning hollow forms I currently do not in my shop. I apply chalk to the dish and lightly rub the guitar rim to transfer the chalk. Shave away the contact areas with a block plane, repeat until there is contact all around. Only then do I sand the rim into the dish. Less dust, less noise, less danger, perhaps a bit more time but not much if any.

[Mike Conner]

So, I watched the video after reading this. I didn't realize he was spinning that whole square piece! Getting a sore elbow would be getting lucky with those dangerous corners spinning around!

By the way, while I have used spinning hollow forms I currently do not in my shop. I apply chalk to the dish and lightly rub the guitar rim to transfer the chalk. Shave away the contact areas with a block plane, repeat until there is contact all around. Only then do I sand the rim into the dish. Less dust, less noise, less danger, perhaps a bit more time but not much if any.

Sunburst, I've been using the "driving the bus" sanding method, and have been rubbing a pencil on the rim, sanding until the pencil disappears. Your suggestion provided a major "doh!" moment for me. For now on it's a block plane to remove the "overburden" !

[and I'll stick with manual sanding. Those motorized versions all just look like potential finger tip removers to me ;-) ]