Building The Towersander

Having built the oscillating drumsander I wanted to try building something that could do a similar job without the hazzle of changing drums to do different diameter curves.

I figured it had to be compact, easy to use and I wanted it to run off an old powerdrill.

I started by cutting out the  circles for the drums on my circle cutting jig, on the bandsaw. They are cut form 18mm BB plywood

 

All the discs are glued and stacked on a 12mm threaded rod

Clamping is applied just by tightening the nuts

Parts for the back and the shelves are cut on the tablesaw

All the shelves get 2 extra layers of 18mm BB plywood for support at the hingepoint

 And the excess is cut off at the bandsaw.

Support brackets on the oposite side of the hinge are glued and nailed in place. The help make the shelves more ridgid.

 

Bearings are fittet to both ends of the shaft with the drums. notice the smallest drum is made from a plastic hose.

The drum tower is temporarily monted to true up the drums like a lathe. And it is powered with the drill at this stage.

40mm cloth backed abrasive is glued to the drums with spray adhesive.

A cover for the powerdrill is made from 9mm BB plywood, and this also holds the power switc. I made a lot of vent holes to make sure that the powerdrill did not overheat.

Installing the bottom shelf of the sander after the parts are painted.

Assembly of the mount for the powerdrill.

The tower is installed. the lower bearing is press fitted into the lower shelf.

Top support gets screwed in place.

Powrdrill goes into its collar holder and chuck tighten over the pertruding lower part of the stacked drums.

Starting to allign all the 4 shelves for isertion of the pipe/hinge.

Inserting the hinge pipe.

Securing the powercables and wiring the powerswitch.

Shelves swing out to give access to different siz drums.

Or all of them can be removed for freehand sanding on all of the different diameter drums.

I am very happy with how this sander turned out. I had been grinding the idea in my head for a long long time before coming up with this design.

There are no dustcollection designed for it yet, but that might be an addon that I can cover later on.

If you are interested in building this sander for yourself, there are plans available in my planstore.

You can find them by clicking the image below.

 

 

If you have not seen my video on this build you can check it ou here: