Frustration = Discovery!

ed if you glue the paper on the cork, will the paper pull off to get the 1200 on the cork?

(not to smart vern)
 
As long as you use either the el-cheapo Duro brand spray glue, or the much more expensive disc glue from an auto parts store, and NOT something like 3M-77 to glue the paper to the cork/gasket material, the paper comes of fairly easily, and in most case you only have to refresh the glue every now an then.
 
Ed,

I seem to remember Terry Primos doing something like this in the past with a piece of micarta on his 1/4 sheet sander, and if I remember correctly he radiused the corners of the micarta to get into the plunge.

Nathan
 
I'm sure I wasn't the first to figure this out....Knowing Terry I would suspect he has come up with a lot of things that most of us haven't even considered yet. :)

I've tried using these little palm sanders off and on over the years, and was just so excited when all the pieces finally came together, that I just had to share my tale.
 
I have the same model sander. Tried it a few times on blades and even on convexes it doesn't do enough to be worth the time.

NOW I have some ideas. This is an excellent modification. The only problem is...my palm sander is packed until August with the move to Nevada ongoing! I hate waiting on something where I have all the parts to do it!
 
WOW! I picked up a palm sander from HF and made the conversion to a knife sander. All I had was 3/8" Micarta, so that is what I used. Because I still have a hard time getting all the deep scratches off the blade, what would have taken an hour to sand out only took about 10 to 15 minutes! This was a great tip ED! Thank you for sharing!

UncleBilly
 
I had been thinking about this for a loooooong time and couldn't understand why more knifemakers didn't use it. I hadn't reckon'd on the rounding caused by the OEM rubber backing and have since bought a bit of 1/8" micarta just to retrofit my sander.

Thanks for the clue!
 
What I'm calling "el cheapo" is the Duro brand spray glue sold at walmart....it's in spray can, labeled "DURO, All-Purpose Spray Adhesive" with a blue plastic cap. It has just enough tack to hold sandpaper in place, without sticking so much that it's difficult to remove.
 
Ed,
Used one of these for a couple of years, and then I found about the trizact cf belts aka gator belts, I still hand sand, but now it takes just a few minutes.
 
Something Ive found with the Duro brand spray, is it kind of builds up a head after a couple of applications, so you dont need to spray every time. Ive also discovered that if you will spray the sheet laying flat, let set to get tacky 3-5 min, it does a better job. Was spraying on the cork and got runs once, made BAD marks on the blade. If you start getting too much glue on the cork, I spray it with 3M Adheasive remover with the disc running then wipe with a course cloth (dont use paper towels!! They make a mess!) Cant wait to get home and try this.

Man the diffrence the disc grinder made, now this! Its almost like cheating! But I love it!!! Should really help on those 3" wide Chefs knives!!!

Thanks Ed!

God Bless
Mike
 
anyone ever tried the modified Palm Sander with rougher grits..lets say from a 120 beltgrinder finish to maybe a 240 or 320 with the palmsander..if so..did it work well and didn´t take as long as done by hand?
thx
Al
 
I follow you, Ed I try to do everything I can to eliminate the physical end of knife making not because im lazy its because of my dissability im just not able to do alot . Im always looking for things like this to speed it up I bought a small palm sander 5 years ago when I started knife making tried it once and was ruining the rubber looks like im throwing out the rubber now lol I will get a couple when they are on sale so changing grits wont be a waste on the paper till its wore out . These sanders do on sale for 15 bucks all the time and I hate hand sanding for finishing. thanks for sharing Kellyw
 
Ed, a number of years ago, somebody on KN or BF was talking about doing the same think with Micarta. As a lot of these palm sanders also have a vacuum feature, I think you might have to figure out a way to allow them to "vent". You are right about using them with the soft pad they come with. Not all that effective.
 
I decided to try and make my own version of a palm sander conversion for knife blades today. I used a couple pieces of wood paneling back to back, because it has a plastic coating which will make it easier to release the spray adhesive. I used 1/16 inch plain cork (from Ace Hardware) with spray adhesive to stick it on and adhesive paper. It’s just a cheap ($15) sander I got at Harbor Freight. I'm trying it at 60 grit, after just forging and filing the blade. I'm alternating between hand sanding and the power sanding just to keep in check. It seems like it's going to work fine and help save some time and some paper. When I get to the finer grits I’ll go with silicon carbide and spray adhesive.

I'm going to try and keep it to a minimum, because of the inherent vibrations, but may end up padding it with something soft to cut the vibrations down... old hands.

The little extension works nice,… helps to see what I'm doing and to follow that curvy blade shape.

DSCN6431_zpscaddea40.jpg


Thanks for the idea Ed.
 
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It’s working pretty good…

I’m basically backing the paper with cork and then sticking the cork to the machine, peeling the cork and paper off after it’s shot. The plain cork roll wasn’t expensive, $4.99 for 12" by 36". I’m using a high quality spray adhesive with this route.

… What I’m thinking, is making the screw on extension plate extensions, different shapes and cross sections for different things.

DSCN6433_zps00d73904.jpg
 
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