I finally got around to doing a video today for those who wanted to see this little sander up and running. It also covers the often asked question about how you hand feed one of these without catastrophic accidents involving the subject piece becoming a lethal projectile.

Disclaimer: I’m no video producer and I didn’t use an editor so you will get to laugh at me a couple of times…… OK all the time maybe.

There are actually three clips in the video. They all involve sanding flat some marquetry I’m working on at the moment. The first , after showing you the subject piece with shiny glue areas showing, covers initial setup of depth. It’s real rocket science. You raise the table and watch the gap. When you touch with a bit of pressure, you’re there. I then go on to take three passes at that depth and the piece is flat. You should be able to see the difference even in this bad video.

The second segment covers an incremental increase. It is so easy. I take three passes on this piece (there are four identically cut pictures) and decide it isn’t quite there yet so I raise the table 1/4 turn on each side and re-lock the table before taking three more passes. at this point it is just about perfect. That’s six passes on a piece of marquetry 1/32" thick to start with and it is still more than 1/2 there.

The last segment just shows how easy it is to change grit. You just change drums. It’s actually a whole lot easier than I made it look this time. Call it stage fright or camera butterflies.

Throughout the process I’m feeding with a push board of 1/4" MDF and I’m pushing with my thigh so that the weight of my body is controlling the feed. This gives far better control than you can get pushing with your hands. When I first started using this sander I was getting little ripples and the odd groove from uneven feed. Now with this push board and this method there is no sign of them at all.

You may notice that dust is another thing there is no sign of at all.

That’s it. Enjoy the video. ( I really do have to go in and edit out that double clip). :-)

Questions, comments, critiques are as usual, encouraged.

Paul