Finish What You Start

Up until now we've avoided finishing projects - in the woodworking sense. (OK truth, we start more projects than we finish too…) Sanding, painting, staining, hole-filling, and sealing are steps we skipped thinking someone better at that than we are could handle it. Except we haven't found anyone else who likes to finish either.

For the “Make a Difference Engine No. 3” project, finishing is becoming required. Even with the accuracy of the ShopBot and cut quality of compression spiral bits, sandwiching layers of Meranti plywood together needs some cleanup.

Fuzzy Edges

Excess Glue

Our first step is simply sanding the edges. By hand it would take days to move in and around the teeth of this gear. The orbital sander we have, a Festool RO 125, is too large to fit in the corners. Time for a new tool.

Introducing the Spindle Sander

This tool has a spinning axle that holds an abrasive cylinder of various diameters and a one inch stroke when operating. It allows you you sand around the edge of a piece and into tight corners. We first saw one in a episode of Tested, where they make a custom headphone stand, and realized it would solve our problem.

To try it out, we selected a bench top entry level tool, a Grizzly G0723. It has spindle sizes from 1/2” to 3” diameter and a dust port. Once it gets here we're going to attempt to modify for a 1/4” sleeve to match our bit size and hit all of our inside corners.