sanding discs on a lathe

[Rhythm House Drums]

I'm about to outfit my lathe with a disc sanding set up. Before I get to the box/table, I want to make sure I do the wheel right. I'm thinking about just using some melamine with a permanent 6" faceplate. Would that be hefty enough (I'm doing a 15" disc) or should I back it with some 1/2" or 3/4" mdf?

Also, having not used a disc sander before, are the discs cloth on the back or paper or a peel and stick? I'm looking at the 15" grizzly discs cause that's all I can find, but I don't see much info on them. What's the recommended / normal attachment method? some sort of adhesive or Velcro?

I know quite a few people do this, seems simple enough for a small shop.. I almost bought a 12" model knowing I'd want bigger and then realized I have a lathe. A quick search in google shows it's quite common and works out really well. Any advice from someone that knows or even has put something together for their lathe will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Joe Scharle]

You might look at the Shopsmith implementation for ideas. Mounts on the headstock spindle and comes in either PSA or hook & loop, my favorite.

 

[CDPeters]

Kevin -

I'm getting ready to do this very thing with a POS Craftsman lathe head I have, with a weird (3/4" x 16tpi) spindle. I just ordered a 6" faceplate from Grizzly for $12.75. I plan to mount a 3/4" x 12" MDF plate coated with shellac, and use Grizzly PSA disks. Hopefully, that's gonna work...

Grizzly does have a decent selection of reasonably priced faceplates if you need one. If you have melamine faced ply handy, that would probably best for the disk, easy change with the PSA type disks. As far as hook and loop goes, there are kits out there that will convert a PSA type disk to hook and loop, but frankly I've seen enough H&L disks fly off a ROS that it really makes me nervous thinking about a 12" disk spinning REALLY fast! Doesn't take much excess heat to melt the hooks and then the H&L has no holding power anymore (DAMHIKT:BangHead:!).

C.

BTW - did you see the article in the latest Popular Woodworking with the sanding table for a lathe?

 

[junquecol]

I would use Baltic birch, faced with "Formica." Many PSA disks are a bear to get off. I'm afraid that melamine would just peal off the backing. Be sure to design a dust collection box for your sanding arrangement. Hook and loop has some give to it, so it's not best for sanding parts to fit (miters etc.) I love my 12" disk sanders, especially when sanding the bodies of my Toys for Tots cars. I cut my own disks and use adhesive spray to attach them. My disk stock is from the bins at Klingspor. Seldom have I ever seen anything wider than 12" though.

 

[Rhythm House Drums]

Thanks for the replies. I stopped by WC on my way home and picked up a 12" sanding disc. I mounted some melamine to a faceplate and then trued it up on the lathe... SO much dust! I did a circle a bit over 15" because I do want to eventually get the discs from grizzly that are 15".

Didn't take too long to set up, cleaned the melamine really good before I stuck the PSA disc on. It was really as simple as that . I will make a table with miter eventually but for now, this worked great. I had some parts that were just not quite matching up even, about 10 min. on this thing and I've never had my joints this tight before on segmented ends... I use to do it with a hand plane and then I'd flatten it up with some paper glued to a flat board.. so I thought.

I'm doing larger rings about 8" diameter and was worried about pressing the ring against the center of the wheel, I started off slow, at about 400 rpm and it was ok, a little chatter, but ok.. so I sped it up to about 900 and then it seemed to glide smooth. I had a larger cone shaped piece as well, 11" diameter on one end, 8 on the other and 9" tall. The large side was fine, but I guess holding the cone in the other direction wasn't so good.. I couldn't get a clean sand unless I barely pressed, any more and it would start to chatter... overall.. I'm Super excited about this addition. It's going to make my drums just that much better