Morris Chair Pair


Chestnut

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How long should i expect the sand paper to last on my drum sander? I have a portion of the drum currently where the paper doesn't have as much grit as the rest. I've ran almost the entire morris chair project through it so a lot of bent lam does this seem about right? Or did i botch the paper somehow?

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19 minutes ago, Brendon_t said:

Honestly, I don't think I've ever run a belt until it was not working any more. Every time I've thrown out a strip is because of a tear on the crappy tensioning side, or walnut sapwood left a black steak that would burn everything it touches. The abrasive does wear, but I get good life out of it by keeping it clean. 

I hit it with the rubber every so often. Noted with the walnut sapwood.

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I've been running one for around 20 years. Keep your rubber block in the freezer to make it last longer and use it frequently. I buy 35 ft rolls for around $23 and cut my own. Made a template from the original factory strips. I think it's 7 -16/32 strips or 5-19/38 per roll. I use a 2b soft lead pencil to mark the outside or the frame where a burn or worn abrasive is and then avoid that area. I mark used strips w burns for re use when I need to just run narrow pieces. Glad to answer any other questions. 

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You probably haven't run it for hours on end taking a pile of parts to exact size on all 4 faces with several grits. It's quite capable of doing that. Keep spare rolls in several grits on hand, it's worth the investment. A single wrap used carefully can last quite awhile but hit the drum off switch at the first sign of a burn and you might be able to erase it with a liberal application of the crepe rubber (this is where a frozen one is best) ! The finer the grit the less you turn the height between passes. Using 150 grit 1/16th to 1/8 of a turn is plenty, 80 grit can handle maybe a 1/4 turn. The wider the board the less you take off on each pass. Full width of the drum be very cautious & barely crank the handle, 1/32 of a turn is probably too much.

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9 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

That's one area the Supermax excels at...or prevents me from screwing up...  There's been several times where my feed rate automatically slowed to a crawl, and that intellisand light lights up often, but I haven't had any burning at all (yet)

Same here. I've heard some ppl claim they get burning when they do this, but I've had 0 problems, I just leave it at full speed.

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10 hours ago, Chestnut said:

How long should i expect the sand paper to last on my drum sander? I have a portion of the drum currently where the paper doesn't have as much grit as the rest. I've ran almost the entire morris chair project through it so a lot of bent lam does this seem about right? Or did i botch the paper somehow?

It took me a while to workout how to use the drum sander well. I'd always try and take too much and it would tear at the tension points. The rest of the paper is fine so it can be torn up and used but it was still frustrating.  Avoid glue. Make sure it's all scraped off or burning will happen. Epoxy goes through fine though. I've found that if there's a burn line, it can be scraped off using a knife. It can also scrape easier if  you take the the paper off the drum.

I posted a thread here a while back about using my template upside down. I cut out the paper, went to install it and it didn't fit. I cut some more paper and then realised I'd made the same mistake twice. 

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I have ran a good 3-4 hours worth of material through it so far.

My strategy thus far has been to run the conveyor  at 75% speed and i usually only crank the handle down far enough to keep the intillissand from kicking on.  I've also been using Steve's advice to run material at slight angles and that seems to help big time. The area where there is burning is on the outside edge and when i first had the machine i was running a wide slab though and may have buggered the sanding roll up prematurely.

I did buy a bunch of rolls of various grits from one of the abrasives place.  I think they were like $17 for a 35' roll. Maybe tonight I'll take the old strip off make a template and then try out some new stuff. I havne't even removed the original strip yet.

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6 hours ago, Pondhockey said:

Stayed up til midnight reading this whole thread.  Very impressive.   I'll look forward to seeing the chairs.

I don't know if i should say I'm sorry or thanks :P. I'm excited to see them done as well. I'm getting close i just hope upholstery doesn't take a long time.

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I have all the back slats cut tenons finessed and am starting to work on loose ends. I'm getting close to being done and this excites me but there is one item that is causing me planning problems. The pivot pins. Marc does these on a lathe and i don't have one nor do i want one. The cost to get a lathe set up for just this project doesn't make sense.

Does any one have any ideas for me on how to make the pivot pins?
Has any one tried to use their drill press as a lathe successfully? (I don't really want to do this but it seems like an option.)

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2 hours ago, Chestnut said:

I have all the back slats cut tenons finessed and am starting to work on loose ends. I'm getting close to being done and this excites me but there is one item that is causing me planning problems. The pivot pins. Marc does these on a lathe and i don't have one nor do i want one. The cost to get a lathe set up for just this project doesn't make sense.

Does any one have any ideas for me on how to make the pivot pins?
Has any one tried to use their drill press as a lathe successfully? (I don't really want to do this but it seems like an option.)

If you are interested I have a lathe and could knock them out pretty quick. Not sure where you live but I'm in Zimmerman/Princeton area. Not the best on a lathe but those are pretty straight forward.

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2 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Another option wood be to purchase a hardwood dowel and glue a head on it. 

That's simple, I should have thought of that. I could round the edges on some square stock to make caps. Just have to make sure to do enough all at once so that all of the pins match. I'll run by rockler on my way home today. Not trying to snub the lathe offering, i do appreciate it.

21 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

I think I may reach out on the Guild FB page to see if I can buy pins from someone.  Someone else used brass rod and that looked pretty awesome. 

This is interesting i could get the brass stock to protrude from caps that i make as outlined above. The problem is I don't know if the backs of the chairs will be against the wall or not. I can file this away for future chair modding if i have the backs so they show off.

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21 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

See if I can use facebook's hosting for this:

 

Those are cool. I think my neighbor has a metal lathe if i ever deiced to do that in the future I'll ask him if he could make them for me. I also like the thought of a wooden head on the brass pin so the pin doesn't dent the back stiles. I don't know if that is a concern or not.

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