Sand-Flee

I've been eyeing the Sand-Flees for several years when visiting woodworkers shows.

Finally when attending a show with Lauren, she saw how useful it could be for some of our recent projects, and we took one home with us. This is the 9" version, the company also sells an 18" model.

The Sand-Flee is an interesting sander. It uses Velcro backed abrasive rolls that are wrapped around a drum. This is not intended as a thickness sander, it's used for finishing. More to come on the Sand-Flee's operation, but in the meantime here are some photos of the installation.

Click on the small images for larger photos.

I have the Sand-Flee atop a cart with drawers. I've dedicated a couple of the drawers to hold abrasives, buffs and sanding mops. Even without dust collection, the sander traps most of the dust, but I've hooked my dust collector into the port on the side of the machine.

Because the Sand-Flee has a 1725 rpm motor, I use the sander's takeoff spindle with a keyless Jacobs chuck to drive sanding mops and Beall buffs.

The sanding mops have smooth shafts, so they insert directly into the chuck.

However, the Beall buffs are threaded 3/8"x16tpi, and I wanted an easy way to spin them in and out of the chuck (there are three buffs, one for each compound: Tripoli, white diamond, and wax).

I bought a couple of 3/8" thread couplers, but the hex shape was too big to fit into the chuck. A few minutes on my mini lathe brought it to round. For the turning, I mounted the coupler onto a 4" long 3/8" bolt which served as a simple mandrel that was inserted into the lathe's chuck.

I made a pair of them figuring that I'd manage to lose at lease one of the inserts. The threaded piece is then inserted into the Sand-Flee's chuck, and it stays there as long as I'm using the buffing wheels.

More to come as we experiment with this tool. First impressions are very good.

I'll make some additional photos that show the inside of the unit, and how it's used.

Stay tuned.