Inflatable drum sander

[chopnhack]

Does anyone have experience with an inflatable drum sander? I have never used one before today and would like to get some experience from the collective mind.

Specifically I am trying to sand smooth the routed edges on my hardwood project. They are 3/8" rounded over and I want to maintain the profile. I was sanding with the drum attached to my drill press set at about 1750rpm with 180 grit. I felt that it was too aggresive and was changing the profile shape a bit. Should I let some air out and make the drum contour more, slow down the drill press some, change to another grit? The pieces are 1 1/16" thick and I would like the roundover to look smoother - no straight lines showing, but I don't want to remove to much too quick.

Any info will be greatly appreciated!

[LinuxRandal]

Inflatable drum sander?



Is this tool porn?

[chopnhack]

No, this is a serious question!

See a similar tool at Grizzly
http://grizzly.com/products/G8749

[Tom Slick]

slow the RPM down and let some air out. the bladder should be very soft.

That is a copy of a sand-rite tool. very neat tool for sanding profiles.

[chopnhack]

Awesome, thanks Tom. I will give that a shot and see if it helps smooth things out.

[Tom Slick]

What diameter is the drum?
try just letting some pressure out first. it should be soft enough that it deflects quite a bit when you apply sanding pressure but not so soft that you can push against the spindle inside the bladder. I hop that makes sense.

[chopnhack]

Yes, it makes perfect sense Tom. The diameter is 3" so I dont think I will have any problem there. Thanks again

[LinuxRandal]

My apollogies. I both had NO idea of what you were talking about (tried to picture an inflateable wide belt drum sander), and something that would show up on Veritas's site, on April 1st.............


All I could think was .....

[Tom Slick]

3" bladder/drum's RPM should be 1500-1700 so you are ok.

I am not an expert with these but they used them where I used to work.

[chopnhack]

LOL, no apologies needed!

[chopnhack]

Thanks again Tom, I guess I just need to experiment more with it. I reduced the air pressure and lowered the rpm, but it seemed to me to still be too aggressive. I might be nit picking, but I was trying to make this project up to heirloom quality level. Honestly though, being a toy it will get wear so I have let go on the perfection level, we will see how much I fret during assembly. Photos to come next week.