Homebrew rotary tool drum sanding rolls

After completely sanding 4 blades entirely by hand (probably with a combined 20+ hours of sanding). I figured there had to be a better way.

I had used the 180 grit sanding discs that came with my dremel to start a few blades. They worked well, but really only the outer 1mm or so of the disc did any of the work. Not to mention I needed like a dozen to cover a blade. I had never used the drum sanding rolls as the grit was to coarse, but I liked the format. So, I decided to see if I could make my own little rolls for the sanding drum bit. At first I thought they'd just fly apart and catch every edge, but I figured I wouldn't know until I tried.

The results, were quite surprising. They worked well and much faster than by hand. Did a much better job than the sanding discs too. As for the integrity, as long as I kept away from any edges or corners, they were just fine.

Anyway, I was in the chat with piper. We got to talking about them and I explained how to make them. But, seeing as it might not have been so clear in just text, I told him I'd throw together a guide on how to make them. Anyway, you can checkout the guide on how to make them. Lemme know what you think.

Before I posted it here, I sent it to piper and asked him to try it to see if it would work for him. The results...

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Hi there! I wanted to test your tutorial before replying; I have, and it works beautifully. Nice work! I cleaned up a blade face of an old Korn Peak last night, using 1500 grit paper, in about 30 minutes--most of that was hand-work with different papers trying to get it to mirror finish. It's pretty close!

Nice tutorial! Thanks!

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[Moderator edit: ToxIc created an updated version of this tutorial, which is available here.

An excellent contribution. Very informative and clear. I see how this can be beneficial for anyone who tinkers with these things.

Very nice work. Easy to understand and implement. Might have to give it a shot meself when I hit the workshop again. Thanks for the contribution.

Double sided carpet tape also works quite well as does PSA sandpaper.

I definitely wanted to try that PSA sandpaper, but alas, I have none.

I have some double sided tape as well, but I chose the plain scotch over it for a few reasons.
One was that I would be frequently changing sandpaper, and if I were to use many sandpaper strips on the same piece of double sided tape, it would slowly loose adhesion.
The other was that I didn't want to get gunky sticky stuff all over the drum. Especially if the gunk gets in little lumps and causes the roll to be bumpy. Once the screw is tightened, the plain scotch tape roll is really snug and tight on the drum. I couldn't pull it off when I tried... well I did manage to get some of it off when the force managed to just tear it :)

Good stuff!
I was actually thinking about doing exactly the same thing.
What are you doing in my brain, ToxIk ?? ;),

BTW Lee Valley has 15 and 5 micron paper in psa, that'd be nice for the final touch

Redwoood

Great stuff Jason and very timely.. Just as I was going to get started on the W&B. You may want to put it in the PDF format and post it in the help files so people can access it even when Sympatico is down :D

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Originally Posted by Redwoood

Good stuff!
I was actually thinking about doing exactly the same thing.
What are you doing in my brain, ToxIk ?? ;),

BTW Lee Valley has 15 and 5 micron paper in psa, that'd be nice for the final touch

Redwoood

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I have some of that 5µ paper, not the PSA, but just the normal. The stuff is really nice, but I find it just works so much slower and takes much more than normal paper.

www.handamerican.com has all the psa grit sandpaper you could ever want. Up to 0.5 micron.

nice guide .. will have to give that a go!


PS. ToxIk, its important that you realize i'd woop you up in team fortress :nono:

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Originally Posted by jscott

PS. ToxIk, its important that you realize i'd woop you up in team fortress :nono:

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Hehe, I don't think I've ever played the original Team Fortress. I've been playing Q3 since the tests tho. I played Q3 Fortress for a while, then it got boring. They ported Q3F to Enemy Territory, so I gave that a go. Since ET is built on the Q3 engine it was virtually identical, but my stint with ETF was short lived and I'm back to mostly playing Q3 again :) Of course there's probably been half a dozen other online games mixed in there over the timespan as well :)

if by enemy territory you mean wolfenstien:ET .. i play that almost daily to get my fill of killing in. Daveandbusters server. if thats the game, swing by say hello.
~J

if by enemy territory you mean wolfenstien:ET .. i play that almost daily to get my fill of killing in. Daveandbusters server. if thats the game, swing by say hello.
~J

I would, but I never actually play vanilla ET. I just installed it so I could try ETF. Both I've unistalled. Right now I mostly just still play q3, with some UT2k4 and BF2 mixed in.

Bumped up 'cause it's good info.

I'll update it with an improvement in the process that Jason made.
1) Get a 1/2" rod and wrap the tape around it (sticky side out). Make sure you stretch it well.
2) Cut a 2cm strip of sandpaper and wrap it diagonally around the tape (make sure you keep it stretched and align the edges as you are wrapping it.
That way you get a long drum from which you can cut short ones. Another tip is to spray the rod with WD40 or cooking oil so you can take the long drum off the rod without cussing and swearing.

Once again I'll reiterate that all of the credit goes to Jason. I just passed on this bit of knowledge.

You'll want to wrap the sandpaper downwards and to the right as well. This will make the spiral edge of the paper spin away from the surface instead of into.

When I get some time I'll post a quick tutorial on how to make the tubes.

very good and thanks for sharing ,I wont be buying the dremmel drums any more,as I think these will work better
Kind regards Peter

Just an additional note. These were a tad too big for the drum and kept slipping off. A layer of micropore around the rubber cylinder (electrical tape should work as well) fixed that.

I know this is an old post,but i just wanted to say thx ,great idea i will be giving this a try .

This was an oldie but a goodie. :) I'll see about adding it to the FAQ, if it's not already there.

Josh

If you can, I suggest using my new "tubes" method. There's a thread on it here. This will produce more drums and I find the spiral wrap helps prevent the edges of the paper from catching and edge and fraying.

Also, if an admin could perhaps edit the main post to indicate there's the update, I'd appriciate it. The post is so old that I can't go and edit it.