Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Making Large Dowels With a Belt Sander

In a previous post and video I showed you all my submission for the 2x4 challenge. I made a 2x4
workbench and I am using it all the time. When I was planning this project I had another idea for a dragster car. I began to make the car, and realized I needed to make large dowels for the rear wheels. This gave me the idea for my latest video where I make large dowels with a belt sander.

I used my new mini workbench to cut and drill a 2x8. The jig was made up of some scraps in my workshop and took me only 15 minutes to build.  After testing it I was surprised to realize that the jig did not need any alterations so I left it as is. In the future I may improve the aesthetics of the jig and continue to use it my shop. The arm (shown in top right photo) is simply a 1x3 piece of plywood with a pivot screw at one end and a bolt at the other to hold the dowel securely in place.

Here is a small cam made from plywood; I cut it on the band saw. I placed the screw off center on the cam to allow for a fine graduation for sanding the dowel.  The end result was impressive and I will definitely be using this again. To see how it all cam together check out the video below. If you want to see the dragster video click here.









4 comments:

  1. Naturally the same will also apply to engine dimension, a lot more amps you could have, a lot more power you will need to control. And so primarily, workers must be secure as well as thorough with their belt sanders; this perfection involving complete sanding, by way of example, is usually fairly tough to attain with one of these large power tools.

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  2. Cool stuff and thanks for sharing this interesting video on how to use a belt sander for tasks like this. Will mark it for future reference!

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  3. That's kind of how it feels to switch from a brutish 4x24 belt sander to a lithe 3x21 model. Although you might miss the power and wide “road coverage” of a 4x24, Brandy Wolfe

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