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Just curious Mike, have you had any allergic reactions yet? Cocobolo is the worst for me. I had to stop using it. It might be wise to always wear gloves, long sleeves, a respirator, and good dust collection when sanding, so you don't get desensitized. Just something else to consider in addition to the drum sanding issues.

Decided to take John's advice on the 36 grit. Gonna try the mineral spirits too because I'm a fan. My klingspor 36 showed up today and that stuff is BEAST

Ya know, I'm seriously allergic to just about everything, but so far the coco has not bothered me. That could change as I get deeper in. I'll report back.

Mike

I use 60 grit blue paper and feed at an angle. Fastest feed rate.
Ryobi WDS 1600, which is a copy of the Performax 16-32.

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John

Fast Feed Rate CHECK
Angled wood feed CHECK
Strong dust collection CHECK
Mineral Spirit CHECK
MIRKA Abranet Heavy Duty CHECK CHECK DOUBLE CHECK MAYDAY MAYDAY

http://mirka-online.com/specialty-abras ... qty-1.html

Wipe with Mineral Sprits or paint thinner before each pass. Been doing it for years with no problems.

One word
Safe-T-Planer
Or is that 2 words and a letter?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

HerrD, are you using Abranet on the drum sander?

Ely, are you wiping down the surface of the coco before each drum sander pass?

Interesting!

Word up on the safeTplane. I wouldn't want to sand more than .010 to .020 of those kind of woods.

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Pat

If I was forced to only have one grit for my Performax, it would very definitely be the 36 grit. I know this sounds ridiculously course, but when faced with a few sets of exotic woods re-sawed to 6 mm or so, I'd rather get them close with the Performax and take a minute to scrape off the sanding scratches (I do follow up with 80 and 150). I use a lot of Cocobolo and the 36 grit works great for hogging off the bulk ... ditto with Brazilian and Indian.

Yes, I use the Abranet on my jet 22-44. works great, my full recommendation. Safety Planer is also good for really taking down material.

Alex, excuse my dumbness, but what is the advantage of having abranet on a drum sander? what is the mesh doing around the drum?
i do use abranet with Mirka´s sanding block hooked to my festool vac and it´s the bee´s knees.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Safe-T-Planer for me too, at least for the big removal. I'll only sand at the end or when I'm going really thin for the really oily stuff.
The oilier woods that gum up a sander usually cut very cleanly with a blade.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

If I need to remove more than 20 or 30 thousands I'll use a planer on really straight grain curl free woods and anything else I'll thin off on the bandsaw with a tall fence and feather boards. I can thickness it pretty easily on the widebelt but for the price of those 36 x75 inch belts I found better ways.

Tim

My Klingspor 36 grit arrived. That stuff is beastly to work with. But I finally got it secured on the drum and it worked great.I had already sanded both sides with 80 so I only sanded one side with the 36 since I did not want to have to finish sand both sides after 36! It was almost like using a planer. Paper barely looked used afterwards. Btw, I am now using a sacrificial bed to lift the board to the drum now. Less that 0.1" is way too close to the platen, expecially with 36 grit.

I have never used one of these, but I keep hearing about them. Used on a drill press, right? No problems with table tolerances? Most drill presses have pretty good tables, but their height tolernaces and so on aren't a critical feature.

I tried using a safety planer for this use, years ago, and found it wasn't a time saver. It might seem like you're going no where when sanding cocobolo using very light cuts(at the fastest feed rate your feeder has!), but it really does go plenty quick. I use 60 or 80 grit. If there's a "trick", it's to use fresh, -sharp- abrasive. I tried Klingspor years ago, and didn't like it; still have a half roll of it sitting around, unused... 3M or better yet, SIA, is a lot better. Much sharper grit, for whatever reason.

36 grit will work, but remember that the depth of the scratches will be deep! Leave yourself plenty of thickness for cleaning-up.

And finally, if your sander is wide enough, run the plates through completely sideways. You can get really aggressive with the depth of cut, even with coco. I try to run everything through sideways. But again, remember to leave enough thickness to allow for a complete cleanup...

Used in a drill press, yes. I wouldn't call it a super precision tool without some extra work but for removing wood, especially in thinner plates, I have found it to be really useful.

You point out a very good issue with these though, most newer drill presses do not have a quill stop so setting the depth precisely can be very difficult. I'm in the process of making a depth stop for my drill press now but what has been working well for me is simply using shims between the body of the press and the bottom on the quill. I made the shims in increments that approximate what a reasonable step down would be for the safe-t-planer and it works fine. You do have to raise the table pretty far up on most drill presses but that is usually not a big deal. It also means you can lock the table (since it is not moving) so if you need to get something better than just close you can adjust the table to be in plane with the spindle and then lock it and not have to move it. Some people use these for very specific work (thicknessing purfling etc... so that type of thing can be done but takes a certain feel. I've never gone that far with it.

They are designed to be used at a fairly high speed, I think between 4000-6000. Many drill presses do not go that high. I've used it at just about 3000 and it still works fine. I put it on the mill once and it worked much better, all that rigidity was very helpful at the high speed, the surface finish was great.

The biggest complaint I have with them is that they throw chips everywhere and that the blades need to be sharpened quite often to get the best use from them (in my opinion). I think there would be a great opportunity to make one more like a face mill that uses round carbide inserts that can simply be rotated slightly (and quickly!) to refresh the edges. I'm working on a design now.

They get made fun of on pro woodworking forums to an extent but for this specific use - thicknessing thin and oily/expensive instrument woods - I think they are a very useful tool. A widebelt sander is a great machine too, I run one at work all the time. But for most of our output (under 8-10 guitars a year) it is as slight extravagance and an infrastructure hog for a small home shop. And, as you found, the 36 grit works pretty well for a set here and there.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Burton, thanks. My DP has a quill stop. Cannot believe they make DPs without quill stops. Maybe one day I'll give the planer a try. I ran three coco side sets and one waterfall bubinga through and the paper still looks great. Had that failed, I would be exploring the planer. I believe one of the biggest problems I had was because my feed rate was too slow (originally). I maxed it out on the last try. I also did 4-6 passes at each setting, different angles and so on. I finished with straight passes, and as per Grumpy's point, left enough thickeness to get rid of the marks. Grumpy, I'll try some of that paper someday. I'm stocked up on Klingspor, not dissapointed in it so far, thus gonna use it up.

Mike, Glad it worked!

Also, I realized I might have used the wrong term. I meant quill lock, not stop. Most older presses have the option to locate and lock the quill. Many newer ones do not. It is very helpful when making small incremental steps down to lock it in place.

Maybe that is what you meant but just in case I wanted to clarify.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Burton, we are thinking the same thing. Mine has nuts on both sides, one for a stop, the other to hold it in place at a set depth. I'm surprised that has become an "optional feature" on newer drill presses. Guess anything goes these days to save a buck. One thing I have considered doing is retrofitting my DP with that table adjustment scheme that does not rely on that ill designed rack and pinion mechanism on the pole. Mine always bends. But I saw this thing that uses pulley's and weights (inside the pole) to accomplish the same thing. http://www.onlinetoolreviews.com/reviews/easyriser.htm

But $300??? I bet I could do it for $100.

Edit: I got the price wrong, its like $70.