Sander for removing CA excess

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yorkie

yorkie

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Charlotte, North Carolina
So, when I'm done with applying CA, there's always that lip of CA to remove. I've been using the hand mill and it works great, but I thought I'd buy a 12" sander and the squaring jig from PSI to accomplish the same thing but I could attach a dust collector to it.

Anyone using this method for such a delicate operation? I haven't used the sander method yet at all, so I'm hoping it's not too fierce.

Thoughts?
 
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You could take a piece of scrap wood turn a taper to fit your headstock MT; sqaure off the other end and glue a piece of 150 grit paper on it. Put your drill chuck in the tail stock and use a transfer punch that fits in the tube and clean it off that way.
 
Deadhead said:
You could take a piece of scrap wood turn a taper to fit your headstock MT; sqaure off the other end and glue a piece of 150 grit paper on it. Put your drill chuck in the tail stock and use a transfer punch that fits in the tube and clean it off that way.
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Thats exactly what I do. It works great!
 
Lay a piece of sandpaper on a table and lightly make figure eights on it with the end of the tube to remove the lip. If the tube was squared when you started it will take almost no effort.

Save the money and buy more pen kits.
 
wouldentu2? said:
Lay a piece of sandpaper on a table and lightly make figure eights on it with the end of the tube to remove the lip. If the tube was squared when you started it will take almost no effort.

Save the money and buy more pen kits.
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Me too, rub til the brass shows bright just takes a few seconds.
 
hazmat74 said:
Someone suggested turning around the cutter head from the pen mill, adhering sandpaper to it and using it backwards to square up blanks. Can't see why the same thing couldn't be done for removing CA after finishing. Would save you some money.
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I tried this method a few times to remove CA on the ends of different tube diameter pens. My observation is that it works better for tube diameters greater than 7 mm. I found it difficult to punch a perfect hole to match the shaft for the 7mm tube. This resulted in a slight crowning when I sanded off the CA, and a poor fit.

I switched to PSA-backed sandpaper mounted to a circle of MDF attached to a face plate, a drill chuck in the tail stock, and the correct sized transfer punch to guide the blank like what these guys suggested. Works great and made a huge improvement in how parts fit.
 
Yes to radial sanding as so many are doing on the lathe. Sanding with that jig on the disc sander is likely to chip the trailing edge of the CA on the end of the blank...been there done that....learned from it. The disc sander is good for getting the blank sanded right to the end of the tube before it goes on the lathe and then, I still sand radially on the lathe to get the ends square. Being sanded on the same machine that will turn the blank removes chances of another machine(disc Sander) not being perfectly square to the tube in both directions.
 
mhbeauford said:
wouldentu2? said:
Lay a piece of sandpaper on a table and lightly make figure eights on it with the end of the tube to remove the lip. If the tube was squared when you started it will take almost no effort.

Save the money and buy more pen kits.
Click to expand...


Me too, rub til the brass shows bright just takes a few seconds.
Click to expand...

I do something similar... I have a Corian table (nice and flat) that I tape a piece of 600 grit sandpaper to and stand my blank on end and drag it across the sandpaper toward me once, turn it 1/4 turn, rinse and repeat... then when I'm done getting the nasties off the barrel I'll spin it on the sandpaper a few times around to ensure it's square and call it done.
 
I've been using Rick's sanding mill for a couple of years and love it, however, I have to change out the sandpaper a lot and the CA dust gets into the air.

I think by using the PSI mill jig and the 12" sander with 220 grit paper. Making sure everything is perfectly square, and hooking it up to a dust collector. I think it's going to be not too aggressive with 220 grit and I can get a nice clean edge after CA finish.

Yes, it's an expensive way to remove the ca from the tips of the tubes but I do like my tools.

I'll put it through it's paces this weekend and let y'all know how it does.



Dan Masshardt said:
Using ricks sanding mill is so incredibly quick, easy and effective, I don't know why I'd ever want to use anything else.
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