Building a modern traditional work bench

I take it you bought 2 screws? In the workbench book there is an example of a twin screw home built. Like yourself, I tend to make most things. I worked as a die-maker for 30 years so working with metal is in the blood. I just spent an hour welding a broken gate on the neighbors farm. Fabrication is like play time for me.

I noticed your sander drum. I had thought about making one of those a while back. How do you like it? Is it from the Canadian company who sells them, or did you make the whole thing? I use a lot of figured woods like birdseye and need to get something short of buying a commercial drum sander.

Paul Downes said:

I take it you bought 2 screws? In the workbench book there is an example of a twin screw home built. Like yourself, I tend to make most things. I worked as a die-maker for 30 years so working with metal is in the blood. I just spent an hour welding a broken gate on the neighbors farm. Fabrication is like play time for me.

I noticed your sander drum. I had thought about making one of those a while back. How do you like it? Is it from the Canadian company who sells them, or did you make the whole thing? I use a lot of figured woods like birdseye and need to get something short of buying a commercial drum sander.

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Heres how I explained it to somebody who PMed me.

The basic way it operates is like a hydraulic cylinder... kind of. On each side there is: a metal pipe mounted to the underside of the bench. This pipe goes through the fixed jaw of the bench. There is a smaller pipe that fits snugly into the larger pipe. The smaller pipe is pressed into the moving jaw. A nut is welded on to the rear of the larger pipe. There is threaded rod that is fixed to the front of the moving jaw. I'm not sure if its clear in any of the pictures how its fastened. There is a metal washer screwed to the front of the moving jaw, the threaded rod runs through the washer and is double nutted. I have a handle welded to one of the nuts that is on the end of the threaded rod on the right side of the vise. When I turn the handle the threaded rod turns and screws into the nut that is welded and the end of the larger pipe. This closes the moving jaw. To get both of the screw assemblies to move together I connected them together with a chain. I welded small sprockets to a nut, I screwed a nut with a sprocket on the end of each and jammed another nut against it. When I turn the handle it turns the threaded rod and the sprocket and therefore the chain and in turn the other sprocket, and threaded rod. I found that this setup works well. There is really no racking of the vise. I have the screws right at the bottom of the vise jaws so I have room to clamp longer boards above the screw and the vise clamps evenly from bottom to top. Hopefully this makes sense.

I like the sander, I need to make some fine adjustments to it because the table isn't quite aligned to the drum. I have been thinking of making a larger one, this is 19" wide and is ok but a wider one would be nice so I could use it to flatten larger glue ups. I have also thought about making it so I can use it as a thickness sander and a "v drum" sander. I'm not sure how the thickness sander part would work with the velcro backed paper.
I made the drum sander from scratch. Its just a plywood box with cheap bearings pressed into holes in the side of the box. The drum is a metal shaft with plywood circles fastened onto it, the whole thing is covered with PSA velcro. I just use velcro backed rolls of sandpaper, its easy and quick to change grits. The drum is driven via belt from a 1hp motor.

I think i understand the design. I have a great salvage yard 25 miles away. I'm sure i can find some steel pieces that will work. I guess you used threaded rod something like 3/4 coarse thread? I saw a whole pile of threaded rod at the yard last week. I'll have to wait until they open on Wednesday to get some. Heck I might even find some acme thread.

I wish I had a tig welder. I like welds on tools to look nice. I can use a friends but he's an hour away. I might just get some steel pipe like 3-4" diameter. It wouldn't be too much trouble to weld up a steel drum and stick some pillow blocks on the end on Thompson shafting. The same friend has all the machines to true up the drum and mill whatever. It would only take a few min. to spin it on the lathe. See what kind of trouble you stir up.

Paul Downes said:

I think i understand the design. I have a great salvage yard 25 miles away. I'm sure i can find some steel pieces that will work. I guess you used threaded rod something like 3/4 coarse thread? I saw a whole pile of threaded rod at the yard last week. I'll have to wait until they open on Wednesday to get some. Heck I might even find some acme thread.

I wish I had a tig welder. I like welds on tools to look nice. I can use a friends but he's an hour away. I might just get some steel pipe like 3-4" diameter. It wouldn't be too much trouble to weld up a steel drum and stick some pillow blocks on the end on Thompson shafting. The same friend has all the machines to true up the drum and mill whatever. It would only take a few min. to spin it on the lathe. See what kind of trouble you stir up.

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I think it was 5/8th threaded rod, I'm not sure. It doesn't have to be terribly thick because the pipe is was is taking the stress. You could probably get 1/2" threaded rod at a plumbing supply house for $5.

I went to dimension the oak for the top of the bench today and realized that I did not have enough, I decided that I would use plywood and do a "gluebo" style top and use the oak for the legs and vises. I picked up 4 sheets of Auurco ply??? from lowes. It looks like nice stuff, I used a sheet of it a few months ago to make an amp rack for our church and liked working with it. My plan is to cut the ply into 4" wide by 8' long strips then stand the strips on edge and glue it up. I saw a variation of this on sawmill creek http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=22081 and it seemed like it worked well. Any thoughts before I start making dust?