One of the problems we encounter when we start this hobby of DIY wood projects is the difficulty of cutting precisely and to the exact size, especially when making some angled cuts and cutting curves. The solution for many of those occasions is to use a disc sander that you can buy or make yourself, as John Heisz shows us (find the link at the end of this article).
You’ve probably noticed in videos on the Internet that many people make a homemade disc sander for their woodworking shop using a drill. Or by recycling some type of electric motor and making the machine with a more or less large disc, I would say around 30 centimeters in diameter, to which they glue the round sandpaper. However, John decided in this case to use a smaller disc and to run the disc sander with a drill.
Other features of this sander are that, in addition to the disc, it also has a sanding belt with its own tensioning system, and both the belt and the sanding disc have a tiltable table to support the wood pieces at the vertical angle we need. I think that the possibility of using a drill instead of a motor is a great idea because it makes the construction easier, and also, using a drill means that fear of working with cables and electricity is no longer an excuse not to make one of these machines.
Although there are simpler options, such as buying a sanding disc for a drill. We only need a suitable stand for the drill and some type of table that we can place in front of the disc. And the drill lathe that I bought to start my first steps in woodturning surprised me when I discovered that in addition to the drill holder (essential in a drill lathe, of course), it also came with a simple table that, placed in the tool rest position, I can use as a sanding table when I install the sanding disc in the drill.
In the video, you can see the lathe I’m talking about, with the sanding disc. This one is 125 millimeters in diameter and has a Velcro surface to attach Velcro sandpaper sheets. The sandpapers I found are 115mm in diameter, but they work perfectly, and even with the sandpapers with holes for random orbital sanders, you can sand without problems. I had never used a disc sander before and was surprised at how easy it is to use, how easy it is to follow the line you want to sand to, and the clean surface it leaves. You just need to take the precaution of sanding in the area where the disc enters the table, because in the area where it comes up, you risk the sandpaper catching the wood and throwing the workpiece toward your face.
Go to the Ibuildit.ca translations page on this blog, and there in number 5, you have the link to see how John makes his disc and belt sander (exactly the one you see in the first photo of this article).
You can also see the homemade disc sander I made with some bearings and a drill.