Replies

1. 
   mrfu | May 03, 2009 07:58am | #1

   I don't think a different brand paper is going to make a difference if the pine you are running through it is as resinous as you describe. Lighter cuts will help some and cleaning the sandpaper with one of those rubber belt cleaners frequently helps a little.
   Once you get any build up on the paper you need to clean it off or it's going to cause burning pretty quick.
   My advice on pine is to stay with the coarser grits and finish up with a random orbital.
   If your getting burning with the maple it is probably one of two things. Taking to much in one pass, these things aren't planers and won't hog off material even using coarse grits. So go light which it sounds like your doing. I have a delta and usually turn the handle a 12th of a turn for each pass.
   The other thing that could be happening is if you are sending the maple through after sanding the pine. It only really takes a couple of passes for the paper to load up when sanding really resinous woods like some pines and then when the maple goes through it heats the pine resin and hardens it causing burning.
   If the sandpaper strips are loaded up but not to the really bad baked on stage you can soak them in water and simple green over night and the rinse and dry them, they can then be reused.
   Tom

2. 
   Lataxe | May 03, 2009 01:05pm | #2

   Stig,

   Southern yellow pine and the drum sander don't mix - unles that pine is 100+ years old and the resins have crystallised somewhat.  Even then, the advice to take light passes with coarse grit and a fast feed-belt speed is correct.  Also very regular cleaning of the sandpaper with the rubber stick.

   The turpentine smell is in fact turpentine.  Before you threw them out, the British Navy cut down huge quantities of Loblolly, Slash, Longleaf and Shortleaf pine in the SE USA - not for timber but for turpentine and pitch, to caulk the decks of hizmajesy's ships.  Hence the generic name for Southern Yellow Pine here in Blighty - pitch-pine.

   E-weight paper-backed sandpapers with a stearate coating seem to do best in drum sanders.  I like the Hermes brand but I don't know if you can get that in the US.  It still picks up and burns resins, gums and such but not quite so easily as cloth-backed and non-stearated sandpaper.  It also seems to clean easier with a solvent like CMT Orange cleaner, if it does get clogged with goo.

   Nowt cleans off hard-burned deposits though.  You might get some of the baked carbon off with a wire brush but it degrades the sandpaper and the "cleaned" areas are also much more prone to burn the goo in the next plank going through the machine.

   Lataxe

1. 
   Stig | May 06, 2009 07:05am | #3

   Thanks to you both. I guess i learned my lesson. I changed the paper and switched to the lumber for my project. Tomorrow, Wednesday the 6th. I shall feed about 30 four foot by three inch wide blood wood pieces through the sander. I will go VERY lightly and inspect the drums before rising the table.

   All this will be done after we plane the strips down to about 1/8 inch thickness. Then we switch to the drum sander. The blood wood is a Brazilian wood, not too oily but very hard and heavy. We plan to use it to laminate four arched shaped legs for a dining table. So, tomorrow the shop will hop with activities. I plan to keep you guys informed. Wish us luck.

   The best

   Stig.

1. 
   geppetto425 | May 06, 2009 10:13am | #4

   You can get burned-in places out of the sand paper by using a piece of plexiglass. Use an edge of the plastic and spot sand the area affected.