Sometimes I have a hard time telling if woodworkers at WoodNet are joking around or not. Like when Snipe Hunter said he’s going to build a drum sander out of a treadmill:
“We (the lovely Mrs Snipe Hunter) have this real nice treadmill collecting dust with digital fpm readout. The motor is plenty strong enough. I have an old westinghouse garage door opener motor with a step down transmission. I’ll use it for the feed. The treadmill has a power height grade doohicky that I’ll use for the drum height adjustment. The bearings are big and sealed. I’ll need to find either another drum to wrap around the extra long tread or a shorter tread.”
I kinda think he’s serious… ;)
His post opened my eyes to the world of homemade or shop made drum, belt and thickness sanders. I dug around and gathered up some build your own sander resources for you!
Here’s the WoodNet post from Snipe Hunter that got me started: I’m going to make a drum sander out of a… He hasn’t posted pictures of his treadmill sander yet so there’s no telling how well it worked :)
In A Simple Shop-Made Thickness Sander Doug Berch shares his simple ideas for a shop made sander. No plans here, but definitely great inspiration for anyone who’s in the “I wonder if I could do that” stage.
In Wide Thickness Sander Shop Made author Edwin Hackleman compares his shop built sander to the plans from ShopNotes he based it on. Again, I thought this was great inspiration for anyone who’s wondering if it’s possible.
Here are a few more resources I found:
Building Your Own Thickness Sander
Building A Home Made Belt Sander
Belt Sander vs a Drum (thickness) Sander
Anybody out there built their own?
