Revolving disc/belt sander table ...

I've recently gained a new toy, it was a birthday present and something I've thought about getting for a while, it's a disc and belt sander, great little tools.

The problem I have is limited space in my shed come workshop and for a while now I've been trying to get it into a more orderly and usable fashion, but with space at a premium I've had to think a little differently.

The sander isn't a big item, but even so it's large enough to cause the small issue of where to put it, so I had to come up with a solution that means I can use the sander easily in the space it now lives.


Here's the sander -

Great little bit of kit.

As you can see it's already attached to the platform I built for it, you can also see that it has a belt sander at the front and a disc sander at the side, and here in lies the problem, in order to use it I'd have to keep picking the whole thing up and turning it round, which isn't I agree that much of a problem, but as I want it to stay in one place when I use it I intended to fix it to my work bench, and having to remove screws each time I want to use the sander was more hassle than I wanted, so I built a turn table for it, which it's already fixed to in the picture.

The turn table consists of two squares of wood, which I cut a little larger than the base of the sander, on one piece of wood I've fixed small wheels and with a bolt through the middle the whole thing is able to turn 360 degrees, which means I just have to rotate the table when I want to use the disc, rather than the whole sander.

To build it I took my two bits of wood (some old cupboard doors) and drawing lines diagonally I found the centre of each bit, then drilled through both parts so that I could push a bolt through, and using the hole I drilled as a guide I drew a circle on the underside of one of the bits of wood, this is where the wheels go.

Wood with circle already drawn on, and bolt hole drilled - 

Not the neatest of jobs.

The wheels are small ones I found in a hardware shop, not very expensive, but perfect for what I wanted them for.

The wheels fixed in place - 

I'll get to the peg in the top right corner in a minute.

I used some small screws and roughly lined up the wheels so that they were more or less evenly spaced around the circle.

Close up of one of the wheels - 

Nothing special, just small plastic wheels.

I fixed two bits of wood to the underside of the bottom plate to allow for the bolt that goes all the way through.

Wood to create clearance for the bolt - 

I just used off cuts for this.

To reduce the amount of movement between the two wooden plates I used a short piece of tube to put the bolt through, this also means the whole thing revolves much more smoothly.

Small piece of copper tube to act as a sheath for the bolt - 

Small bits of tube always come in handy for something.

The bolt I used was just the first one I happened to find that was long enough, I tend to keep odd nuts and bolts for just this sort of thing, it's a bit rusty, but it does the job.

The bolt - 

Underside.

Top.

Now with that done what I needed was a way to lock the turn table in place, not really usable if it's spinning about all over the place, so I made a simple spring loaded peg that locks into one of two holes depending on what part of the sander I want to use.

The peg consists of two bits of dowel, 12mm for each end and 9mm for the shaft that the spring sits on, I also used two washers to stop the spring going through the hole that the locking peg sits in.

The locking peg (underside so you can see the spring etc) - 

Simple but effective.

It's a simple solution, but it does mean I can lock the table in place, I was originally going to use two pegs, but for now I'll see how I go with one.

Here's the locking peg from another view - 

You should be able to see how it works.

Basically one end of the peg fits into a hole I drilled on the bottom plate, if I want to move the sander round I just pull the peg up and spin the top plate round, and then the peg as it's spring loaded automatically locks into place, the spring sits between the two larger bits of dowel, which I drilled holes in and then glued onto the smaller dowel.

Here's a few more pictures of the finished turn table - 

Sanding belt at front.

Table spins clockwise.

Now disc sander is at the front.

And here it is in my humble workshop, you can see that space is at a bit of a premium, but I think it will work out well, I can easily turn the sander round, and I've used a couple of small brackets to hold the turn table down, so it doesn't move about.

The sander in it's new home - 

Not much space.

Should be enough clearance around the sander.

All in all I'm quite pleased with the turn table, it should make it much easier to use the sander in it's little spot, and I think I've left enough room around it so it doesn't get in the way of my post drill, which you can't see in the pictures, but it's just to the right of the sander.

Thanks for reading.