Chippygeoff
Established Member
As so much interest was shown in the CS48 sander I mentioned on my previous post I thought I would start a new one dealing with the sander so that members may have an insight into it before being tempted to go out and buy one. My nearest Machine Mart is about 25 miles away so having a couple of hours spare this afternoon I popped over and bought one. After opening the large box and getting the actual sander out and onto the bench there remained in the box the tables and the dust extraction pieces. The belt and the disc are what they call medium grade, about 80 grit. The table for the disc sander is really easy to fit and just takes a minute and has an angle guide on the side so you can get the table square to the disc without having to get your square out. For a sander of this size I thought the manufacturer was very generous with the size of the table, it measures 266 x 190mm.
I did not bother fitting the table to the belt side of the sander and this would have reduced the amount of usable belt and as it is at the moment is just big enough for most of the things I make but even so I may be tempted to reduce the guard by about 2 inches to give me the extra length. I will see how much further the plate goes that is underneath the belt before doing this. I feel many of you would not need to use the entire length of the belt so fitting the table would be an advantage but for my needs I never use the table on the belt.
When fitting the extension port to the sander there is an allen nut on the side that needs tightening and an allen key is provided for this. Fitting the dust bag and the clamping ring is a doddle and then it is already to go. As I said in my previous post, it is a cracking sander. In my opinion is is very well made, the steel casing is very substantial and the whole unit is very heavy. It oozes quality if that is the right work and for a machine made by Vlarke I was very pleasantly surprised at just how good it is. Because of the design of the layout of the belt and the disc I found it best to have the sander at an angle on the bench in order to make best use of the belt and the disc without having to move it about all the time. There is provision to bilt the sander to the bench but I feel this won't be needed because of the sheer weight of the machine and having used it there is no chance of it moving during operation.
For me this is the perfect sander. After I have drilled all my entry holes I always sand the back of the wood to sand off the bit's of breakout. When I have made something I sand the back again to remove most of the fuzzies and then sand the face side. When I make an oval plaque there is no starting point when cutting it out so where you start the cut is where you will finish it and often there is a little bump and this is where the disc comes into it's own. I also make a lot of different animals that stand up and the disc is very good at squaring up the feet should the need arise. There are many other uses I use the sander for and I have just mentioned a couple.
While I was at Machine Mart I bought a pack of spare belts and a pack of spare disc, all medium grade. I also bought some amazing rolls of abrasive and your not going to **** me for this but it is identical to an abrasive I used many years ago but have forgotten the name of it now and the firm I used to get it from went out of business. It's a silicon carbide paper and the colour is grey, it comes on 5 metre rolls and I got a roll of 180 and one of 320 and they were 6 quid all but a penny. It is long lasting and well worth the money.
I did not bother fitting the table to the belt side of the sander and this would have reduced the amount of usable belt and as it is at the moment is just big enough for most of the things I make but even so I may be tempted to reduce the guard by about 2 inches to give me the extra length. I will see how much further the plate goes that is underneath the belt before doing this. I feel many of you would not need to use the entire length of the belt so fitting the table would be an advantage but for my needs I never use the table on the belt.
When fitting the extension port to the sander there is an allen nut on the side that needs tightening and an allen key is provided for this. Fitting the dust bag and the clamping ring is a doddle and then it is already to go. As I said in my previous post, it is a cracking sander. In my opinion is is very well made, the steel casing is very substantial and the whole unit is very heavy. It oozes quality if that is the right work and for a machine made by Vlarke I was very pleasantly surprised at just how good it is. Because of the design of the layout of the belt and the disc I found it best to have the sander at an angle on the bench in order to make best use of the belt and the disc without having to move it about all the time. There is provision to bilt the sander to the bench but I feel this won't be needed because of the sheer weight of the machine and having used it there is no chance of it moving during operation.
For me this is the perfect sander. After I have drilled all my entry holes I always sand the back of the wood to sand off the bit's of breakout. When I have made something I sand the back again to remove most of the fuzzies and then sand the face side. When I make an oval plaque there is no starting point when cutting it out so where you start the cut is where you will finish it and often there is a little bump and this is where the disc comes into it's own. I also make a lot of different animals that stand up and the disc is very good at squaring up the feet should the need arise. There are many other uses I use the sander for and I have just mentioned a couple.
While I was at Machine Mart I bought a pack of spare belts and a pack of spare disc, all medium grade. I also bought some amazing rolls of abrasive and your not going to **** me for this but it is identical to an abrasive I used many years ago but have forgotten the name of it now and the firm I used to get it from went out of business. It's a silicon carbide paper and the colour is grey, it comes on 5 metre rolls and I got a roll of 180 and one of 320 and they were 6 quid all but a penny. It is long lasting and well worth the money.
