Thread: How I built a very long (and extremely useful) Drum Sander based on Toxik's theory

Hello gents,

Based on Toxik's tutorial where he explains how to build loads of drum sanders of various grits, I picked up some of his ideas and achieved something that helped sand a blade in no time.

I first did some drum sanders like Toxik does, but the drum sander only sanded a very narrow area of the blade at a time. I began noticing that the sanding process wasn't being even throughout the blade, maybe because my pressure and balance were uneven.

To sand more area at a time near the tip of the razor, I didn't put the drum sander in 45 degrees like Toxik says but I put it in 0 degrees. This way, all of the drum sander is sanding the blade, not just the top.
I realised that the tip began to look better than the area near the heel of the blade, so I came to a conclusion that if I could sand this way the blade in all its length, the result should be better.

I needed to find something long and slim enough to be wrapped around with tape and then with sand paper.
Here's the material I used:

- Sand paper of various grit
- Tape (I used duct tape)
- Rotary tool
- and the plastic tube of a PEN, yes, a pen, that's right



How do I do it?

The same way Toxik tells us to do. The only difference here is that I wrap the tape around the pen tube instead of the drum. This way I have a very long (and sticky) tube ready to grab a strip of sandpaper.
In the next image, you can see how the length on the pen tube is perfect to reach the heel of the blade.



Once it's wrapped with sand paper, it's ready to go to work. Slide it into the rotary tool and let the sanding begin.

I needed about 10 minutes per grit. I stopped at 1600, because that's the highest grit I could find.
Here's how it looks, without being polished and cleaned. It looks really good, it has a beautiful, even and uniform shine and I'm thrilled that it turned out this good!



So, what do you think about my looney invention?

Very cool!

It definitely polished the blade evenly.

That's some ingenuity for ya!

LEON, you're brilliant.

I like it a lot, thanks for posting it.....
You just gave me a great idea for using my drill press for something other than drilling pins.....
I think I would feel a little safer about it if there were some type of stop at the base of the pen /head of the drill thinking of what to use....

I am going to try out some variations on that on my day off THANKS!!!!

Great thinking!

I will try it.

Charlie

Brilliant, Leon.

I'll definitely steal your idea, next time I get into blade restoration.

Thanks for sharing,

Bart.