Cheap Thickness Sander (for Drill Press)

[GoodWood]

I picked up a circular flat sander at the auto store for about $8.00. They are STIFF and ridgid, not the floppy kind. You can use those 5" round sticky sanding discs for it. I ran my mahogany sides through it, as they were a little thick .82, to get them to about .78 and it worked great! Used 100 grit. You just need good flat scrap piece of ply underneath it. It also works on my maple headstock, although its ALOT slower. Need 60 grit for that.

Im also thinking of Cumplianos book, if you have a circle cutter, with plywood you could just make your own. This was cheap and easy and fast way to thickness soft woods. Its nice because the secret is it has a ridgid body, but rubber padding for the sandpaper disc. So its a bit flexible. No sanding marks on the wood as I can see.

Finally something cheap that does an important job! The drill press gets quite a workout lately

its a 3M 03142 auto pak disc sand, but Im thinking I could make an 8 incher and do my own thickness sanding,as they make round sandpaper discs that size.

Edited June 15, 2007 by GoodWood

[biliousfrog]

no cross-grain sanding marks? It sounds like a great idea but I could imagine a lot of scratches from the disc swirling across the grain.

[GoodWood]

no cross-grain sanding marks? It sounds like a great idea but I could imagine a lot of scratches from the disc swirling across the grain.

Uhm, Nuuuuuu, none I can see...

I would think I need to pay homage to the LMI guy who did the Build a guitar DVD. He used one of those saftey planers, and that blew me away. (cause its like $50.00 not $650.00 for the real thing) That was probably kicking around the subconcious when I saw the flat thing.