Sanding stop champfer stair balustrades- The quick way

[ColeyS1]

Hello,

I was recently given the job of making 4 flights of stairs. All that was left to do was finish the balustrades. The balustrades were given a stop champfer on the spindle moulder and the faces were cleaned up before hand on the drum sander.

All that remained was to finish sand the faces, and deal with the champfers.

Generally the stop champfers were good. I did end up having a few with slight burns or small tearout. The orbital sanding i don't mind- its the sanding the champfers by hand and scraping out any burn marks that annoyed me :evil: With over 200 balustrades to deal with, the cuts on the ends of my fingers weren't looking forward to it.

we'd recently bought these from axminster

I chose one of them which had a slightly smaller radius than the stop champfers. Theres not alot to the jig really.

Not sure if its even worthy of 'the jig' title! its just a piece of 3x2 with a 45 degree angle on the edge. I set the drill quite slow (540 rpm) Then worked from right to left sliding the balustrade on the slope.

The left hand just allowed the balustrade to slide through ( bit like a hand sliding through a steering wheel) The right hand just needed to pull it back a little.

It was a whole lot easier and quicker than doing it by hand :!: The sander dealt with any burns or small tearouts in a matter of seconds. When the paper was worn, move the fence in a little more and you've got a new piece. I used the same piece of sand paper for all the balustrades. Just moved the fence bit in a little 4 times. Just the orbital sanding and sharp edges to do tomorrow now

I'll never sand stop champfers by hand ever again after this. I was sanding on average 1 every minute. Theres no way i could have kept that pace doing it by hand.

Simon

 

[woodsworth]

That is a great tip!!! thanks very much for sharing it. What type of drill press do you have? it looks very heavy duty.

 

[GCR]

Many thanks for that, if all goes to plan I may well be doing a small staircasefull of spindles in the near future and this could save me much elbow ache!
Bob

 

[Dalboy]

Those sanding drums are good for the next job might be worth making this to fit on the drill press with the addition of your jig. Just raise the table to use all of the sand paper. Dust extraction is great even with a vac

This is with the inserts to suit the drums

 

[ColeyS1]

Hi all. Woodsworth its the axminster HD25F1. We did have a smaller machine but it decided to die half way through a rush job.

Dalboy, im loving that idea ! Dust free sanding and all the paper can be used- thanks for posting that :!: The inserts are a very good idea :wink:

 

[aesmith]

Is the sanding drum supported from underneath, or hanging from the chuck? I think the morse taper would fall out of my drill.

 

[ColeyS1]

Hi tony,
no its not supported from underneath. An old drill we had use to have the same problem with the chuck falling out. Its real annoying isn't it :evil: :roll:
Had to separate a chuck from its arbor today. It was unbelievably tight. When they did separate it looked like there was some kind of blueish residue left on the inside of the taper- Loctite maybe ? Certainly held things together.

Simon