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Square Buff Sander Home Depot
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With a lot of sanding and basal woodworking skills, you can about-face your artificial deride drive into a chic lath drive. Let me appearance you how.
Skill Level: Moderate
Build time: 5-7 days
Tools needed:
General notes:
This activity isn’t that hard, but it will booty up to a anniversary acknowledgment to cement and poly dehydration time. The approximate build time alone takes a few hours and requires basal woodworking skills. The drive could still be completed afterwards benchtop ability tools, but try to get your easily on at atomic a annal saw to accomplish the centermost cut. It could be done by duke with a arresting saw, but it would be account your money to hire a ability saw for an hour or two.
Materials:
This is up to you, but the centermost amount should be a abutting balk and actual split resistant like white oak or white ash. You are activity to appearance the alien layers so that copse needs to booty sanding well—try basswood, cherry, hickory, or mahogany. Try lumberyards for a bigger alternative of hardwoods than Home Depot or Lowes – Menards has a nice alternative though.
I fabricated these deride drives out of Honduras amber and white oak covered with four layers of a polyurethane finish. Home centers should acquire displays that appearance what dupe attending like back accomplished so aces out two that acclaim anniversary other.
Safety:
This is actual important: abrasion a respirator when sanding as some balk breed are toxic. Most exotic species release gas or particles when sanded, so put a affectation on and bang the dog out of the workshop. A acceptable acquaintance of abundance absent his dog this way as he wore a mask, but his dog was in the boutique back he was alive with African Rosewood. WEAR A MASK.
Assembly:
Tear afar your deride drive. Use a baby spiral disciplinarian or account knife to pry it apart.
You are activity to charge three pieces of wood. A bandage saw is the appropriate apparatus to cut down quarter stock to the appropriate size, but a alliance saw or table saw could be acclimated too. Accomplish the top bandage 1/2″ blubbery and if you can cut it safely, the basal bandage an 1/8″.
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The centermost bandage needs to be as blubbery as your USB anchorage on the broken afar drive. Cut the centermost allotment as abutting to that array as possible.
Eventually, these pieces are activity to be alert calm so beach anniversary ancillary well; the smoother the surfaces are, the bigger the cement will adhere.
Take your three pieces and beach bottomward one alfresco bend smooth. It will be nearly impossible to beach bottomward this ancillary already you cement up the pieces and that’s the ancillary the USB anchorage will be on
After you beach bottomward the anchorage ancillary edge, bung a broken afar changeable USB drive into the macho port. This will accord you the abyss bare and additionally a collapsed apparent to authority the drive while you complete the abutting step.
Trace the broken afar USB drive in the average of the centermost allotment of copse application the changeable drive anchorage as a collapsed edge. The metal anchorage with the changeable end should be the alone affair not actuality traced on the wood.
You are activity to charge to cut the outline with a annal saw. Be abiding to cut aural the curve until the drive fits snugly aural the cutout.
Take this agent and trace the outline on one ancillary of the attenuate basal piece. This will accord you a accepted abstraction area the drive is back the accomplished affair is glued-up.
Time to glue:
Take your centermost cutout, forth with one of the end pieces, and besom cement on both of ’em.
Carefully abode the glued-up pieces in amid two copse calls and catch with a lot of pressure authoritative abiding that the penciled outline correctly illustrates where the ambit lath is within. Let the cement dry for a few hours and again cement the added allotment in place. Allow the cement to dry overnight.
By this time you should acquire a block of copse with a USB drive afraid out one end and an outline on the basal allotment of wood. Hopefully.
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I didn’t bandage up my body until afterwards on, but you should at this point. Wrap electrical tape about the metal bung to assure it and accommodate a little added captivation surface; you don’t appetite to beach off your barb like I did.
Shaping:
Using the outline on the bottom, trim abroad the excess wood on a bandage saw or annal saw. This will save you sanding.
I acclimated a bank top belt sander to do the shaping, but a handheld belt sander clamped to a table would assignment too. Slowly appearance the drive and pay abutting absorption to the outline as you don’t appetite to beach too abundant away. Oh, and abrasion a mask!
Once you acquire the drive almost sanded out, use 220-grit sandpaper to accomplishment abstraction it. I begin that if you basic sandpaper to a 2×4, you can rub the drive on the cardboard itself which gives you added control. The beach cardboard will accomplishment abstraction the drive and you will again use animate absolute to bland the wood.
Beer!
You should acquire a lath deride drive that is 95% done. The appearance should be complete and the copse bland acknowledgment to 220 dust sandpaper, but it isn’t bland enough. So grab a comfortable seat, a beer, and 000 animate wool.
Rub the copse drive on 000 animate absolute for about an hour. Serious. It takes me an hour of animate absolute sanding and a brace of beers afore I’m annoyed with the wood. Seriously; an hour.
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Then grab addition beer and 0000 animate absolute for addition annular of sanding. You will be afraid how the copse will attending afterwards sanding it with animate wool. There isn’t a bigger way to accompany out the atom and blush of the wood.
Finishing:
After all that sanding, the copse should be admirable and accessible to acquire the finish. Remember, the accomplishment will exaggerate the wood underneath and will not hid anything. It will accomplish the atom and, if still present, sanding marks angle out so accomplish abiding the copse is perfect.
I acclimated both bright and satin polyurethane on my deride drives; personally, like the aloft the best. You could use oils such as linseed or tung and the copse will attending great, but oils will not assure the copse as abundant as a poly finish. Your best though.
I acclimated four coats of poly and they angry out great. Apply a attenuate bandage and let it dry completely. You will charge to agilely beach the finishes in amid coats with a apple-pie 0000 animate absolute pad. The animate absolute will abolish some of the just-applied finish, but that’s what you want. This technique will body up a lustrous coat of poly on your lath deride drive.
Peel off the electrical tape and use a razor brand to apple-pie off any poly that seeped through the bandage assimilate the metal port. You could addict the accomplishment or alike put a covering of wax on it, but it’s basically done at this point. Acquire fun, be safe and feel chargeless to bead questions in the comments beneath or at Matt at CrunchGear dot Com.
Next project:
A lath deride drive with a cap. Rough aboriginal body pictured above.
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