Woodworking and power tool peeps, can you tell me what happened here?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

This happened to my random orbital sander.

It’s a gently used, 10 year old Ryobi. I am a crafter, not a wood working or power tool guy, thus the gently used part. That little block of wood is popsicle sticks glued together. I was using the sander to round off the top a bit and, well, this happened. What is “this” exactly? And why did “this” happen? I need another random orbital sander, obviously. Which one should a non-woodworking, gently-using, old-and-scared-of-real-power-tools crafter get.

In case it matters, the sander was on, I was holding it onto my table by the handle, face out and rubbing the wood against it and not doing the roundy-roundy thing with the sander like the people on TV. Also, that’s not just the sandpaper that came off, thats the top part that shakes when you turn it on. Yeah, not a woodworking type person. Sorry I don’t have the words.

#2

Screws that hold the plate vibrated off?

#3

Checked on them. They are all still in place. Some in the plate and some in sander. Not sheared or melted, just in their hole, chilling out. Maybe they unscrewed themselves?

#4

I can’t tell what is going on from the picture but a couple WAGs are always in order.

The screws could have vibrated loose (10 years and all) But I guess you wouldn’t have a problem then.

The plastic has oxidized and become brittle and snapped. I use those sanders pretty hard and they don’t generally last more than 3-4 years .

I don’t think it matters what sander you buy, for such light and infrequent use.

#5

I think this may be it. The screws do look fine but the plastic around it is looking for too sharp and shiny.

#6

Hey, now that I have any woodworking peeps attention: I still wanna round that thing off. I have a little, old Dremel with a few attachments and I’m thinking of putting the wood in a tiny vice I have and using that. Is that feasible? How would you go about doing it?

#7

You could use the Dremel with a flap-wheel sanding attachment, but it’s such a small tool that it’s going to be hard to make a smooth, even edge. Depending on how much you wanted to round the edge, I would look at doing it the old-fashioned way, with a piece of sandpaper and a rubber sanding block.

#8

Noooooooo! Not by hand!!!

O.K., full disclosure. I didn’t wanna say because I don’t want to sound like a crazy person who makes shit up and then doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing but here we are.

I want to make a pendant out of it and I want it to have as much of a teardrop shape as possible, with as much taper as I could make considering I’ve never done this before. I was making great progress with the orbital, too. Sanding it down to a point by hand seems impossible to me even though the thing is barely 4 inches long. Is it possible?

#9

If you do a fair amount of crafting you might consider getting a 4" belt sander. I think they run about $60.00. If not there is a drum sander attachment you can put in your drill. They are very inexpensive and would make short work of that project.

#10

This’ll make you freak-out: Take an Exacto knife and shave off as much as you can up to the point. Then sand. Probably put the fat end in a vise, first. Shave AWAY from your body.

#11

I would so get a wee belt sander if I had the room. I do have a drill and, if this pendant comes out nice and I start using resin (that’s where this idea is going. No, I’ve never used resin before) a sanding attachment sound like a good idea.

Since this is pretty bad and cheap popsickle stick wood that I glued together, I’m afraid if I try this it will splinter apart if I hooked it wrong.

#12

OK, if you have a lot of material to remove, get acheap coping saw, and use that to rough it to close to the final shape, than hand-sand (or use the Dremel carefully).

#13

Get a sanding drum or flap sander that you can chuck up in your drill. Then use that like you were using your sander, hold drill down and move the piece.

#14

I’d recommend one like this:
WEN 6515 1 x 30" Belt Sander with 5" Sanding Disc https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M68YKST/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_taa_ta3DBbNP3G7CB

Not necessarily that brand, but it gives you a small belt sander for working greens and as well as a small disk sander. Both very useful in crafting.

GaryM

#15

BG, don’t screw around. Sooner or later you will need more power. I recommend going straight to a fretboard radiusing sander, they are made for this job.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/Guitar-Fretboard-Radiusing-Sander/G0574

Or go to Home Depot and buy a nice major brand finishing sander. I think any of them will handle craft work just fine.

Dennis

#16

Pshaw to the fretboard radiusing sander. What you really need is one ofthese. While you may balk at the price being well north of $10,000, it is worth every penny. It is true that Der Winterstieger is designed to tune skis and snowboards, however I’ve done very delicate work with machines similar to this. Grinding one thread off of a 4.5 mm screw. And when you get to the resin stage, a wet belt sander produces a beautiful finish

#17

Well. I really, really enjoyed using my old Dremel on it.The thing was a gift that I barely used on wire jewelry. I got to shape the wood pretty well. I had to stop myself because I thought I might shape it away to nothing. I did end up hand sanding it in the end but only to get a nice, smooth finish. I may sand it a little more, to see how perfectly smooth I can get it so that there’s no trace of the fact that it’s glued together popsicle sticks.

This Dremel thing, I must read up on how to use all the pieces parts it came with. I’d like to drill a hole in the pendant but the drill bits don’t fit. I think it needs a different holder thingy. Yeah, I’m so up on this tool lingo.

This whole thing is because I wanted to use resin for the first time and had a plan to half encase the pendant, but I’m so proud of my first tiny, little wood shaping project I think I’m gonna see how pretty I can make it without the resin.

Still gonna need a new sander, though. Let me see if I can dig up $10,000 in the couch cushions.

#18

The part that the accessory (the interchangeable tool or bit you stick into the Dremel) shaft slips into is a collet, which is tightened onto said shaft with a collet nut. A collet is made for one specific size (diameter) of shaft, so only one particular drill bit size will fit it. There are different collet sizes available for the different accessory shaft sizes used. Of course you could always drill the hole with your drill.

#19

You could buy this Dremel Drill Chuck with woill work with bits up to 1/8".

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dremel-1-32-in-Multi-Pro-Rotary-Tool-Chuck-4486/100531881

#20

I think I’m gonna have to. Along with these here fuckers because this is a thing I’ll be doing now. So many ideas running in my head. Especially if I can get the resin to act like as I imagine. To think, I’ve had this Dremel for years and used it only to polish wire wrapping. I’m going to have to figure out what all the other bits and pieces do and how they work.

What a neat tool for the power tool shy. And I owe it all to my 10 year old sander falling to pieces in my hand.