A pressing gloat that has some bearing.....

[froglips]

Ok, I'm sipping my victory beer ccasion1

Copious pics will follow tomorrow, as I'm done for the night.

As a teaser.....

I have totally disassembled and pulled the shot bearings out of an old Craftsman 1/2 sheet sander.

Then, with the help of some folks on the board, I got the new bearings today in Raleigh. Ended up at both stores (Allied and Motion) to find all three sizes.

Over the course of this week, I designed and built a hydraulic press out of 2x4's and a bottle jack.

And it worked!!!! I was able to press on all three bearings.

Sure, I could've bought a new cheap sander for the cost of the bearings and bottle jack. Sure, I could've taken it to a machine shop to do the bearing work. Sure, I could've bought a hydraulic press or arbor press.....

But that wouldn't be at all like me :gar-Bi

Jim

 

[Sealeveler]

Congrats on a successful rebuild.And using your noggin doing it.Tony

 

[Gotcha6]

:icon_thum 'at's what I'M talkin 'bout!
(Clint Eastwood voice on) "He improvised, he adapted, he overcame."

 

[Splint Eastwood]

Jim,

Thanks for not BORING us with details...:gar-Bi. You must have been PRESSED for time!

But a pic or two ? I would love to see !

Way to go !

 

[LeftyTom]

What? Still no pics of the snader? Jim, this will rub some people the wrong way! :eusa_naug

 

[froglips]

Ok, hang on, this is going to be a funny story.....

It started on tuesday. I remembered this sander I had in my shed from an old auction.

Its a Craftsman 1/2 sheet sander. It happens to be this very one:

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

Poof, suddenly its fully dissasembled..

View image in gallery​

Fast forward to friday night, after my trip to Raleigh for lunch and trips to Applied and Motion supply houses for bearings, bada bing, bada boom:

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

I also redid the power cord (note the nifty red tape!)

This is the my homemade 2x4 based Hydraulic press. The top and bottom rails are fixed, the middle one floats. I used a combination of washers and sockets (metric, who uses those anyway) to press the bearings over the shafts.

One perk? I made a mistake, and the shaft just jammed into the wood. It would've probably been bent had it been a real metal framed press

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

Now, as promised, here is the funny part.

I worked fast and furious to get this done by Saturday. So I could take it with me to the Hillsborough Orange Woodworkers Meetup. We had a day of sanding ahead of us, and I was all excited to use my newly revived sander!!

Loaded up some paper, checked the runway, no oncoming traffic, we have ignition!

Sander fired right up.

Then, my bubble burst, my ballon fell, the wind went out of my sails. The sander was so heavy, big and powerful, that it shook the small parts so much that it didn't sand much at all..... :tinysmile_cry_t:

So, my Sander Revitalization Project was a success, this specific application was a bust.

Gotta love the sweet irony of life!

Thanks for the interest.

Jim

 

[CarvedTones]

Cool story! Didja try clamping the sander upside down and holding the small parts? I have done that before on mandolin bridges.

 

[froglips]

Well, I tried something similiar that improved the vibration. Clamping the parts down helped.

Bottom line was we had a small army of palm and ros sanders, so it wasn't really worth the time.

The Beast will be great when I do larger things, so it was effort well spent.

And I learned a lot (aka you learn from your mistakes, so I got to learn A LOT)!

Jim