Making a Drum Sander – Part 3 – First Run

With the drum sander being essentially functional, I could start fixing it in its working place and truing the drum. Both issues were simple but not easy, so it took me a whole day and some more to do it properly.

The first problem to solve was how to fix the drum sander besides the belt sander so it could be powered by it. Here has shown my first serious mis-measurement. I had to trim a sliver of the belt sander base because I could not position the drum sander close enough for the wheels to align properly. Then I stood in front of the problem of how to fix the drum sander in place so it does not slide around.

From the start, I wanted to do it with two M10 bolts at the back but my first attempt was a bust. You can see the results of that first attempt, those two yooge holes in the back of the base. The problem was not that it was not stable or somesuch. The problem was that the bolts would be in the way if I wanted to sand something longer than about 40 cm. What followed was about an hour of serious thinking and faffing around in the workshop and when I started to work on another solution, I accidentally found two metal angle irons with pre-drilled holes.

I undid all the work I did in the last hour, screwed these two onto the back of the belt sander base, and cut the 10 mm holes open. That way I could slide them onto the M10 rods inserted into holes in my workbench and fix them in place with winged nuts. I also had some play to slightly re-position the belt sander to align the wheels properly before tightening the nuts.

With the back of the belt sander being fixed to the table, I could run it but I also added two legs on the front just in case. They are not strictly necessary – in fact, one of them is a tad short and is not even touching the ground properly and I will have to add a screw extension – but I feel better with them.

With the belt sander standing, I could run it for real. I used an old trizact belt to power it. That works for now as an impromptu measure, I will make a proper sturdy leather belt to do the job. For now, I stood in front of it for a couple hours running a piece of particle board with 60-grid sandpaper glued to it to true the drum, holding the board in one hand and vacuuming the particles with the other.

Here you can see the drum being sanded down to being nearly, but not entirely, concentric. There are still visible gouges made by the table saw. I had to run the sandpaper under it quite a few times after each lifting of the table, and I only could lift the table about ¼ of a mm at a time. I only ran it at 20% speed at first because the drum was so unbalanced and the whole assembly vibrated violently. After a while, I could increase the speed to 40% as the cylinder became more and more concentric and thus better balanced. That is also the top speed at which I intend to use the machine since higher speeds would burn the wood and destroy the abrasives (I built the machine so the surface speed of the drum is approximately the same as the surface speed of the belt so I can transfer experience from one to the other).

Late in the evening truing the drum was finished and it was flush with the table across the whole length to within a tenth of a mm. I left a bit of a gap here so it can be seen.

With the drum being concentric and true, I could finally fix some abrasive to it. For a test, I used an old torn 40-grit belt. First I wound it around the cylinder, fixed it with rubber bands, and trimmed the edges to flush (these scissors are used for trimming abrasives and nothing else, in case you are wondering). After that, I cut grooves into the sides of the cylinders, tucked a bit of the belt in it, and fixed it in place with a screw.

It worked reasonably well as a temporary solution and I learned a few things when running it for a few hours with some testing pieces of wood. The leading edge held up fine but the trailing edge eventually tore off. It seems that at the trailing edge, the screw is completely unnecessary and a bit of double-sided adhesive tape would suffice plenty. That is good to know, but I am already looking for a better way to do it in the final version. I am ordering some velcro and abrasives with velcro.

And that’s it for now. The 40 grit did hog off material quite nicely. I flattened a seriously twisted and bent piece of jatoba that I definitively would not be able to flatten manually, ever. Although manually feeding the stock through the machine is still hard work (for me) – I did get some workouts on my back and my pecs that way. Still an order of magnitude less work than trying to flatten one of the hardest woods on the planet by hand.

There is still a lot of work to be done and I will do it and write about it. Optimize the assembly/disassembly, optimize the attachment of abrasives, optimize the legs, make dust collection attachment, make a proper and safe push tool to feed the wood through, and finally, paint job. Only I do not know when I will do all this it because I have to take about a week’s pause from this work. I have to paint the kitchen now. I hate it, but it needs to be done and it has to be done now because now my brother can come by to help with things that need four hands.

Making a Drum Sander – Part 2 – Tilting Table

I took Sunday off and on Monday I had other things to do but yesterday and today I could work on the drum sander some more and I progressed significantly. First I finished and attached the propulsion wheel. I started that right at the beginning but it progressed slowly because I glued it from several layers of old plywood and I had to wait for the glue to dry a few times. Just before the two-day break, I soaked the surface with epoxy resin to make it harder and on Tuesday I turned and sanded it until it was passably round. I will probably give it another layer of epoxy once everything is finished, I will use the epoxy on other parts too to improve their surface hardness and strength.

The wheel is attached to the axis with an M4 screw going through a thread drilled and cut into the axis. I hope it is strong enough and won’t get sheared off in work because I do not have any better idea how to do it. I need to be able to eventually remove this wheel in case a ball bearing gets busted and needs replacing. I am also leaving myself a bit of the axe poking out so I can power the thing with my drill in case powering it with the belt grinder does not work.

On the right side, I added a fence with a shelf to lift the base 55 mm; on the left side, I simply added a 55 prism. Then I screwed two spruce boards on it to reinforce the structure. Though I screwed them on with the wrong grain direction of the core but it seems to hold strongly enough. Should a problem occur, I will reinforce it later or replace it with properly oriented boards.

The base under the propelling wheel is unsupported. This has a reason – I need to be able to slide this side over the base of the belt grinder because I need to align this wheel with the motor and the spanning wheels of the belt grinder. It should not be under too much stress but I did reinforce it with steel under the wheel where there will be most of it. Again, I might add some more support later, for now, I think this suffices.

That was Tuesday done. I attached it improvised to the belt grinder and it worked, albeit it was loud as hell. I think that can’t be helped, the ball bearings are not perfectly aligned and the drum is not concentric yet and I can only solve the second of these two issues.

Today I made the tilting table to adjust the sanded thickness. And here I must thank to rsmith for pointing me to a page with useful information about how to make a very simple one.

I started by cutting-out a piece from the lifted base. This was the plan all along, to use this space for some sort of mechanism to lift the table. On the front, I added a 55 x 20 mm beech board across. Beech is reasonably strong hardwood, it should be able to support the table. In the middle of the board is inserted a 24 mm long M8 nut with a sufficiently long rod through it. To operate the screw I tightened on it a hex nut and a winged nut against each other.

I decided to make the table from a 15 mm particle board because the piece I had had a very smooth surface and it is straight. However, particle boards are not exactly known for their strength, so I had to reinforce it. I reinforced the rear end with stripes of beech wood for the hinges to have better and stronger anchor points. I put it under weight and went for lunch while it was setting

After lunch, I continued reinforcing it. On the front end, I added an offcut of angle iron. That also provides a hard surface for the screw to lift the table.

For longitudinal support, I screwed on two beech strips. I forgot the exact measurements, somewhere around 25×15 mm or somesuch. I tested it and it seemed to be sturdy enough against bending, but not against twisting due to the table being supported by a single point on the front. It should not be a huge problem if the sander is loaded in the center as it should be, nevertheless, I decided to reinforce it further with three offcuts from the same particle board intended for firewood.

One continuous piece would be better and I had a suitable one – the one that I cut out of the base in the morning – but I completely forgot about it until these were screwed on and I did not want to go through the hassle of trimming it and drilling all the holes again. I think it is strong enough and if not, I can add more support later. I say that a lot.

And this is where I finished today. I think the work is progressing nicely. I have a tilting table with a range of about 35 mm, which is plenty for my purposes. It takes about 80 half turns to lift from zero to full. That is enough sensitivity to sand off only tiny layers of material when needed. The whole assembly so far is sufficiently light and compact that I can easily lift it and put it under the table next to the table saw when not in use. I am reluctant to be optimistic but I do feel ever so slightly positive about this project.

Making a Drum Sander – Part 1 – Base

How the time flies – it is two years since I wrote a series of blog posts „Showing off my wood“ where I have shown various woods at my disposal for crafting. I have so much material in fact that it is not improbable but downright impossible for me to use it all up making knife handles and knife blocks, I just cannot make that many different knives alone. So I would like to make some high-quality end-grain cutting boards to convert at least some of that massive amount of material into something useful.

I started last year but I hit a snag. I need to mate wooden surfaces together perfectly, but there is no convenient way for me to flatten wooden surfaces in reasonable time and in scale. My manual method is precise, but also tiring and time-consuming. I need a drum sander to make even a few end-grain cutting boards. And I cannot buy one for two reasons. Firstly I don’t have the money. Second, I don’t have the space needed for one.

But since I have managed to build myself a belt sander, I decided this year to spend some time trying to build a drum sander too. I had more than a year to think about it and with the money these things cost, even if I spend a whole month building one, it would still be worth it.

I started by gluing three large pieces of black locust wood together to form a large prism through whose center I put a 10 mm threaded rod. I cut the edges off on a circular saw and then I stood in front of a bit of a problem – how to turn a large-ish wooden cylinder without a lathe. I rigged up a temporary wooden structure that allowed me to span the prism in such a way that it could run against the edge of the circular saw whilst being continuously rotated with hand-held akku drill. I hope the picture makes it clear what I mean.

It made an absolutely unholy mess and I was terrified the whole time but I succeeded in making a rough cylinder round enough to progress to other works. I will make the cylinder perfectly round and concentric with its rotational axis later.

I swapped the threaded shaft for a smooth 10 mm one and to secure it to the cylinder I drilled 3 mm holes throughout it and the shaft on both ends and I drove 3 mm hard steel through the hole. I hope it’s strong enough for the forces needed, if not and it shears off during work, I will have to think up something better. I also cut grooves in the shafts to secure one ball bearing on each side with circlips. I later decided to use two ball bearings, with the second one being put near the first one and not being secured with circlips. As you can clearly see, I am making things up as I go along and I do not always know what I am doing.

A 15 mm particle board from an old PC table serves as a base to build upon. To hold the ball bearings I cut short boards from hardwood (beech) and I made cutouts for the ball bearings between two pieces and screwed them together with long wood screws. It appeared to be reasonably strong and it held the ball bearings firmly, but it was a bit wobbly. So I glued 15 mm particle boards to the beech boards to widen the bases a bit.

While the glue was setting on that, I trimmed the edges of the cylinder. I used the boards that held it in the circular saw jig and a hand-held drill as the source of rotation again. That left me with only one hand free to trim the edges but a hacksaw blade proved to be quite efficient at that. Setting the initial groove was a bit fiddly but once started, it went easily, albeit slowly. The edges are not perfectly square and flat but they do not need to be.

Once the boards for holding the ball bearings were glued together, I glued them to the base with five-minute epoxy. Epoxy is expensive, but I needed a strong bond to make subsequent works easier.

Once the epoxy cured, I added 4 80 mm wood screws through the beech cores and then also multiple 6 mm bamboo dowels glued in with PVA glue. I do hope that is strong enough in itself but it was additionally reinforced with the last step.

There are strong anchor points on the base for the ball bearings and I changed the way they are held between the boards from the temporary wood screws to the final solution – I put two M8 rods through the whole thing with pronged nuts hammered into the particle board base and wing nuts on top. It holds the ball bearings firmly in place and the cylinder can rotate freely.

And this is where I am right now. Next, I can start working on the propulsion part.

During all this work I am also spending a lot of time just thinking not only about each step but also about what might be the main challenge of this project – the adjustable sanding thickness. I have several ideas but they all are fiddly and complicated and I would like to keep things as simple as possible. The simpler the mechanism, the fewer potential points of failure. I won’t even attempt to make some sort of automatic feeding – the wood will be fed through the machine manually (if I manage to make it work).

I Don’t Need No Gym

I am doing my best to publish at least one article a week on my knife blogge, but I had trouble managing that and I could not write much for Affinity as you might have noticed. The main reason is my huge garden, which kept me occupied for two months almost continuously.

Whilst re-potting my bonsai, I tried this year also to plant new poplar trees in my coppice since the water voles did such a number on them a few years ago. I found an easy way this time to plant them -instead of digging holes, I drilled them with a long carbide-tipped 12 mm masonry drill. It went comparatively easy and fast and after just a few days work I managed to plant several rows of trees. Then came warm weather and everything started to grow, the trees took root and it looked promising. And after that came abnormally deep frost (-5°C) most of the trees died and my work was thus wasted. The frost also killed one of my most beautiful outdoor bonsai trees – my only hornbeam – the roots froze in the bowl. What a beautiful spring start!

I did manage to get about 2 cubic meters of firewood from my coppice this year, which is good, about a month’s worth of heating right there, with minimal money expenditure. I also cut a lot of dead wood from my apple tree, which is slowly dying from water vole damage. The tree still lives, but only just. The odds are that next year it will all be firewood since it also received additional damage from the late frost. What a beautiful spring start!

When planting potatoes this year, I added a lot of charcoal to the soil that I prepared over winter. Then I covered the potatoes with only a thin layer of soil and a thick layer of grass clippings to try at a larger scale the experiment from last year. After that came a short drought and abnormally high winds, which blew the grass away in some parts, and the potatoes froze due to the strong late frost that followed shortly after. About 10 % of the potato patch thus did not sprout at all and another 10% look weak and sickly even now. What a beautiful spring start!

Here used to be several huge compost heaps. I flattened them out into one huge new patch, which took me several weeks of hard work. I planted pumpkins on there after the strong frost was over. But the weather after that was so cold and miserable that they did not grow at all for about a month and slugs destroyed about half of them despite my best efforts, using both manual and chemical tools at my disposal to kill those buggers. On some evenings I collected as much as about 1kg of slugs from the vegetable patches. This week some of the pumpkins finally started to grow as the night temperatures are over 10°C at last, but some are still tiny and there is a huge question mark over whether I will or will not have any use from all this work at all. What a beautiful spring start!

The seeding potatoes were very small and thus there was more of them than I expected. I had to prepare a small new patch near my second greenhouse to plant them. It was a lot of work to haul all that compost there to plant them, but at least these were completely unaffected by the frost and they appear to thrive. Great! When I was at it, I also prepared a second patch, where I planted red beets. Those are still tiny because the weather was so fucking cold overnight that it was on some days in June colder than it was first two weeks in April. I also planted some sweet corn, two packets. One packet did not germinate at all, and the other one produced just several sickly plants that are now still smaller than the grass that I have not mown for a week. Fuck this spring.

I had so many tomato seedlings that I planted over twenty of them outside. Three got immediately mauled to death by slugs. The rest managed to grow tough enough for the slugs no longer trying to eat them but they did not grow any taller – they are positively tiny. Because the nights were so cold. I am curious if we get an extremely hot and dry summer after the extremely wet and cold spring. So, like last year, first nothing grows because it is too cold, and subsequently nothing grows because it is too hot. I hate this year’s weather.

I did not sift the compost heaps but I did at least pick bigger stones manually, as I do all year throughout my vegetable patches. I got several buckets worth. If you remember, I used most of these accumulated stones last year to repair the walking path to my home. Well, I got about 20% of what I used up last year back again. Stones are not a renewable resource, but my garden has a seemingly unlimited supply of them.

When planting the trees, I hit something hard twice. Once a bigger stone and once a buried brick. And when planting beans and working on the compost heaps I suddenly hit a really large stone, that I subsequently had to dig out. These are big slabs of phyllite that were used as paving stones in the past around here. I have a pile of them both from digging them up in my garden in seemingly random places and from the time when we too had walking paths paved with them, which I replaced with modern concrete paving a few years ago. At least these stones can be useful in the garden, but hitting one with a gardening fork or a shovel is not fun. Neither is hauling them solo onto the wheelbarrow. I procrastinate moving this one for three weeks because I sprained my back with the previous one.

Apart from slugs, grass also thrives in the fucking cold weather. I have to mow it to be able to access all the areas of my garden where I need to work. At least there are no HOAs here so when I want to leave a patch with pretty flowers on it where it does not impede me, I can do that. So I do. Yay for pretty flowers!

Tomatoes inside the greenhouse do look promising this year. I put a lot of compost and some fertilizer in there in the fall and I mixed it with the soil thoroughly. Inside the greenhouse, the climate was warm enough, albeit possibly too humid. The plants had wet leaves each morning because they had to actively pump out water. I used a chemical spray to prevent Phytophthora infestans. I hope it works because if they do not get sick, they really do look promising. Fingers crossed, I had enough setbacks this year already, and I need some wins.

The fig trees are growing like mad. I cut them down to about 70-90 cm in height and they are double that already. They were overshadowing the tomatoes and I had to prune them. They put out some fruit already, so I might get some this year too despite the really heavy pruning in early spring. The figs really liked the warm and tepid winter and the greenhouse shielded them from the negative impacts of the cold spring, so they are the only plants that truly thrive. The grapes and pomegranates thrive too, but I did not take pictures of those since I have been ranting long enough already.

Often in the past, I said that I do not need to go to the gym, I get enough workouts in the garden and it is more useful. Well, this year the bad weather and extreme slug infestation are doing their best to make the second part of that statement untrue. At least I don’t have to pay for it. Oh wait, I do pay for it – the molluscicides, fungicides, and seeds… Well, I might still come out with a profit, but it is not sure. I need at least 150 kg of potatoes to come even. Every other vegetable on top of that would be a bonus. That is not impossible, even with this bad start of the year.

A Soaring Eagle Knife

In a sense, this knife was in the making for over twenty years. At least more than twenty years ago I drew the picture of a soaring eagle for the purpose of using it to adorn a knife. Initially, I wanted to etch the image on the blade, but I made this blade with a ridge, thus it could not be fitted on it. So I decided to use it on the leather sheath instead.

The blade is mirror-polished and it was a major PITA to take a picture. One day I will simply have to invest time and money in a better lighting setup. I just don’t want to.

The handle is made from the same material as the kestrel knife, but the inserts are only from a birch polypore. The big thick white pieces contrast nicely with the wood. Which has in my opinion a much more interesting pattern than the previous one.

To take a picture of the embossed sheath was a bugger too. It is too shiny and in most pictures, it gleamed like a naked bum. At some point I had to work with what I had, I could not re-take the photos forever.

Carving and embossing all the feathers was fairly difficult, especially the tips of the wings, and I am sure it could be done better. Sometimes I think I am punishing myself with these elaborate designs. But despite its flaws, this time I do like the end result. I think it looks handmade, but not ineptly made.

The metal fittings are from wire-brushed bronze and the washer at the end of the peened tang is shaped like a chrysanthemum blossom. It is already acquiring patina. I was thinking about whether to let it age naturally or whether to speed up the process and I decided to let things to their natural progression.

With the blade over 17 cm long, it is a big boi. But weighing just about 392 g with sheath, it is not particularly heavy. And since the point of balance is at the forefinger just at the boundary between the white polypore and the wood of the handle, it feels very light and nimble in the hand.

A Kestrel Knife

I’ve been extremely busy these last few months, that is, I was busy when I had the spoons and the strength to do anything meaningful at all. Knifemaking has progressed at a snail’s pace, which those who read the knife blogge will know. But I did manage to finish dressing up two more blades from my first overabladeance and today I sharpened them and I started to take pictures. And I started with the smaller of the two.

I tried my hand at embossing the sheath with a picture of a kestrel, based on one of my own photographs. I do not think I have done a spectacular job, but I showed it to a few people IRL who seemed to like it. Although some thought the kestrel was an eagle. But I think that is an indictment of their knowledge of birds and not of my leather carving ability. Though honestly, I had trouble getting into the mindset needed to work, I am barely keeping depression from eating my brain.

The blade is an old design that I have shown here multiple times. Nothing new about that, but I tried some new materials for the handle and I think they show great promise for future projects.

I used strongly decomposed (spalted) wood and this time, I submerged the wood in wood dye first and then I stabilized it with a resin that cures at 80°C. And it worked very well. The dye soaked primarily into the more decomposed parts and that created an additional marbling effect to the one created by the fungus itself. The white-ish inserts are not bone this time, but also resin-stabilized material – birch polypore, Fomitopsis betulina. It looks to be very promising material, I will write about it more when making my next project with it. And the chocolate brown inserts are also resin stabilized conk – tinder fungus, Fomes fomentarius. That also looks like a promising material for bolsters, inserts, etc.

And to cap it off, at the end of the tang is a nut shaped like a heraldic rose blossom.

Sometime this week I will also make pictures of the second knife. That one is significantly bigger.

Spiderslug!

Today in the morning I went to my greenhouse to plant some tomatoes and I was greeted by something I had never seen before – a slug hanging from the ceiling on a thread something looking very much like spider silk. It was not easy to snap a picture with my phone but I managed to get the bugger into focus twice and the thread is visible if you look closely. I do not know if it was bitten by a radioactive spider or somesuch. I suspect more that it was a freak accident where the slug fell from the ceiling and the humidity and temperature were just right for it to remain hanging on a thread of desiccated slug slime.

The slug did not survive its attempt at an aerial assault on my tomatoes. No slug that gets caught within the greenhouse survives long enough to tell the tale I am afraid, and neither do many that I encounter in the garden. I do not like killing living creatures but I am not working my ass off so slugs can have a feast and I learned a long time ago that one can be on the side of either the slugs or the veggies, but not both.

A Question About the Student Protests.

I have a question to ask regarding current student protests against the genocide in Gaza. Police in the USA is cracking down on them violently, as is usually the case. There have been a lot of student protests throughout history all around the world. I am of course not familiar with too many of them, but two from my own country were most remarkable. One such protest in 1939 led to a violent crackdown led by the Nazi secret police Gestapo and extrajudicial executions of a number of students and it is today the reason for November 17 being International Student’s Day The other was in 1989, the violent crackdown was led by the Communists secret police StB and it has sparked the Velvet Revolution.

In those two instances a pattern arises, one that is not difficult to spot. That leads to my question:

Was there at any time and any place in history an instance of violent smackdown on student protests where the judgment of history was on the side of the police and not on the side of the students?

From the top of my head, I do not know about such an occurrence.

Moar Easter Gingerbreads

My mother made these on Sunday and only just now I got around to post them.

Knives on Snow

Winter did not want to give up yet, which suits me just fine. I wanted some pictures of my newly made knives with snow/winter backgrounds and I could not do it because the winter was insanely tepid and wet with nary a snowflake in sight. Yet tonight the weather obliged and I woke to a nice sunny day with a few cm of snow cover. Thus right after breakfast I went out and arranged all three knives and took pictures. I might never use them for the intended purpose, but I am glad I made them anyway.

I am also glad for the cold spell since it gave me reprieve from hard labor in the garden and I could spend the day indoors making knives again. I still have a lot of undressed blades to finish.

The snow melted right away and everything is soggy now. Still more should come according to the forecast. I was just about to plant the potatoes when it started to snow and now it might take a few more days before I can do that. Hooray!

2023 Christmass Gingerbreads

Here are some of my mother’s creations she made for last Christmas. I forgot to post them at the time.

2024 Eeaster Gingrebreads

I completely forgot to post my mother’s creations for the previous Christmas. Would you be interested in seeing them now? Before you answer, here are the gingerbreads she made for this Easter.

Her hands are shaky but they are still beautiful. And delicious. And most importantly – making them brings her joy.

Habsolutly Hamazin Dhance!

Usually, I am indifferent to looking at dancing and hate doing it. but this video captivated me completely. It is a rare case of me being amazed.

I like the original song a lot but I did not listen to it for a long time. Thus I do not know why the algorithm recommended it today, but it done did do good this time. I think the performance is simply stunning in every aspect, starting with the choice of venue, the lighting, the color scheme of the costumes, the choreography, and simply everything. It must have been a lot of work and rehearsing, but the result is simply amazing. And it really is difficult to impress me with a dance routine enough to want to share it.

Affinity

Art, Fun, & Nonsense.

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Making a Drum Sander – Part 3 – First Run

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Making a Drum Sander – Part 2 – Tilting Table

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Making a Drum Sander – Part 1 – Base

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I Don’t Need No Gym

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A Soaring Eagle Knife

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A Kestrel Knife

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Spiderslug!

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Moar Easter Gingerbreads

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Knives on Snow

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2023 Christmass Gingerbreads

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2024 Eeaster Gingrebreads

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Habsolutly Hamazin Dhance!

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