Beautiful Walnut

[adowden]

Here is a picture of a hunk of walnut that I surfaced today. It was the first piece that I ran through my new jet 22-44 drum sander. I was very pleased with the results. All I have done is run it through on both sides at 80 grit. Next I get the run the 8' long slabs for the Nakashima inspired dining room table.

Amy

 

[DaveO]

It looks like you're gonna have some really nice crotch feathering in that piece. Please keep us posted on your progress...I love wood porn :icon_thum
Dave

 

[Trent Mason]

VERY nice!!! 8-O

Trent

 

[cskipper]

That's beautiful! Glad you are enjoying the new toy!

 

[TracyP]

I Want One, Drum sander that is.:rotflm::rotflm:

 

[Ray Martin]

Amy,

Walnut is one of my favorites. Like Dave said... keep us posted as you develop this project. That walnut will be really beautiful as you finish it.

Ray

 

[ScottM]

Amy, my keen eye detects a flaw in the wood that won't work for you. I'll stop over and save you the trouble of throwing it out. :gar-La;


Very Nice......

 

[Bas]

Very nice! Unlike SOME people here, I won't try and "steal" that piece from you...noooo! I'll just take the 8' boards (sanded of course), thank you very much

That's going to make a pretty table!

 

[TV]

The table is going to be beautiful. Is the drum sander a stealth gloat?

tv

 

[Glennbear]

Very nice Amy, certainly beats mucho labor with a ROS :wsmile:

 

[McRabbet]

Amy,

Two important tips for you from my experience dealing with large slabs through a drum sander. First, long slabs are a two person job! One person places the slab onto the sander infeed side while the second supports it at the same height. Here, I enlisted the help of Sammy Samotis to use his 37" Grizzly sander to rough a slab of Bubinga for my Countertop project last year.

The guy (me) taking this picture then moved to the outfeed side to capture the slab and maintains the same height to avoid snipe. Note the dust hose going into the top dust port. If you do not have two people, use roller stands on the infeed and outfeed sides. (Thats what I do with my 25" Woodmaster drum sander, but be sure to adjust them to the correct height.)

Second, it is important to use adequate dust collection, especially with Walnut and other toxic species. As you already know, drum sanders produce lots of dust! The small Delta DC wasn't adequate for Sammy's big sander -- tons came out the other side! He has since added a big cyclone for his entire shop.

And it carries on to your finish sanding, too. Here I am with my ROS sanding that slab down to 180 grit -- hard to see the hose connected to my ShopVac, but you can see the respirator, for sure!

 

[adowden]

Thanks so much for the tips, Rob. I have a few questions.

1) What grit did you start with on the drum sander?

2) Did you use any other grits on the drum sander before switching to the ROS?

3) How long did it take to surface both sides of the Bubinga countertop on the drum sander?

Thanks for your help.
Amy

 

[McRabbet]

Thanks so much for the tips, Rob. I have a few questions.

1) What grit did you start with on the drum sander? With unplaned, rough lumber, I start with 80 grit, but I usually try to plane stock first and get it down to 1/16" of final thickness for glue-up. Then after panel glue ups (my most common use of the sander), I do passes on each side with 80 until I am within 0.010-0.012 inch of target thickenss

2) Did you use any other grits on the drum sander before switching to the ROS? I change to 120 grit for final sanding, sometimes I go to 180, taking only a few thousandsth each pass. Then I finish sand with my ROS at 180/220.

3) How long did it take to surface both sides of the Bubinga countertop on the drum sander? Because it was rough to start, we took about 12-15 passes with 2 grits at once as this was on a dual drum sander (80 and 120). It was 22+ inches wide, so we only took 5-10 thousandths off with each pass. It was 121" long.

Thanks for your help.
Amy

Hope this helps.

 

[Travis Porter]

Love the walnut!

One thing I would recommend getting for a disc/drum sander is a Wixey gauge. Before I got mine, I was forever sanding to agressively or not agressive enough and ruining the paper.

As for grit, I have got to quit using 100 grit. DavidF made me aware of how coarse/scratched up it makes it look and changing paper is too much of a PITA for me to run more than one grit if I can help it.