The Urban Woodworker

Easy disc sander

I like many others had a need for a disc sander. I like many others do not have $300 to spend on one. I do however have a 70's Craftsman Radial Arm saw that has wear in the bushings making it impossible to keep adjusted to correct alignment. This particular model has an accessory side on the motor that a 1/2" Jacobs drill chuck will screw onto. The motor also spins at 3500 RPM which is a great speed for a disc sander.

What I did here will work for anything that you can connect a drill chuck too, whether it is a Radial Arm Saw or a wood lathe.

For $7 you can buy this sanding polishing disc that has a 5/8 11tpi attachment. Another plus is that it has a hook and loop attachment for the sanding discs themselves. It is easy to find these 7" sanding sheets nearly anywhere. You will also need an adapter, that I was able to get at Home Depot. It is a Milwaukee adapter 48-03-1005, and cost about $5. This adapter screws into the sanding disc backer (5/8" 11tpi), and then allows you to screw in a m10x1.25 bolt. M10 is small enough to fit into a 1/2 chuck once you cut the head off. 

With what I listed above, you have a sanding disc that can be chucked up in the chuck you use on your lathe, or a motor you have  chuck on. If you want to make what I did continue on. 

The RAS has a slider that slides forward and backwards. attached to this slider (don't know what its called for real) is a cradle that allows the motor to turn from a cross cut to a rip cut. This cradle is what I removed, with the motor still attached. I also removed the on off switch to reuse. My RAS was mounted to a rolling cabinet that came with the saw, so I removed the rest of the RAS from this cabinet.  I then turned the cradle upside down and mounted it to the cabinet so that the accessory side was hanging off enough to allow the disc to mount without hitting said cabinet. I also mounted the old on/off switch to the cabinet to run the motor. Now I have a disc sander, just need to build a table on it, and a shaft that spends at 3500 RPM that could easily power another piece of equipment.