budget thickness sander
Tools,  Wood

Budget thickness sander

Its capacity is 60 x 5 cm (width x height). This should be OK for most of my future projects, however, there is an easy way to increase these dimensions. The nuts shown in the picture below will be replaced by butterfly wing nuts in the coming days, these were just easier to get at my local store.

It’s made from upcycled workbench from LIDL. The original top is replaced by a homemade angle grinder table top.

Cutting the MDF is producing a lot of dust. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of wearing a dust mask.

The borders can be raised and lowered in order to achieve the desired thickness of the material. The excess will be removed by an angle grinder attached to the sledge of a total length of 120 cm or so. I’ve ripped cut a few planks and they’re ready for planing. I can imagine this project will always be about dust and even more dust!

A mitre saw is actually great for cross-cutting long materials. I was going to sell mine, but now I’m not so sure.

Everything was rip-cut last weekend. Now is the time to measure the angle grinder and cut pieces to length.

The locking mechanism pictured below was supposed to be more sophisticated, but it came out like this. It does the job perfectly, it only looks not exactly professional. There is a washer there and a nut – they prevent the angle grinder from moving up. These are followed by a gap, that can’t be seen in the picture. To hold the angle grinder down, there comes an aluminium piece and another nut. This can be adjusted by bending or straightening the aluminium bit.

Setting the depth with a combination square is very fast and easy. I have to try how it works before the jig is finished with some wood oil.

It does the job! The bolts that hold the angle grinder in place have to be replaced by some proper ones. Maybe I will install some stopping pins in the bottom of the jig, also I was wondering to use mini spring clamps at each corner of the table depth fence to hold the top piece in place at all times. Anyway – I’m very happy with how this came out!