Oscillating Spindle Attachment for a Drill Press

[Stanley C. Pearse]

Does anyone know if there is an attachment that I can put on my drill press to make it an "oscillating" spindle sander?

Thanks!

[Doug Harmon]

stan what question are you referring to?   no iam not a member of lumberjocks

 

[Jay Boutwell]

Hi Stanley.  In the early 90's there was a company of which built a limited number of attachments to attach to the rear of a normal drill press that allowed it to be converted into a oscillating sander by used a sanding drum in the drill chuck.  It operated by a lever that was attached to the quill handle using a length of adjustable rod.  The drill press was turned on and then with the quill unlocked the auxiliary motor was turned on.   It moved the quill up and down thus giving you a spindle sander.

In about the mid 90's I saw one and then built one using a electric drill of which I converted the on/off switch to remain on all the time and used another switch to control the drill motor.   In the drill chuck I build a small crank the converted the direction of how the rpm were used and attached it to a rod of which you could un-hook with out removing the unit from the drill press.  I had some trouble figuring out the length of rod that I needed to make the units work as one.  Other that that it worked well and very simple to build.  it was used for light contour sanding on such items as bar counter corbels and other small sized Curved items.  I never bought one of the commercial units and have not seen one in several years.  They can be made very durable by using a 3/8 drill that you can control the speed of the rpm's.  Back when I built this one I was lucky enough to have an old Milwaukee drill that turned slow enough to do the job without beating the drill press apart.

I had also though of using an old small motor from an electric fan that had multiple speed controls but the ole Milwaukee worked out fine.

I have found this site with a pdf file of which you should be able to build you one very easily.  I hope this helps you with some of your questions and maybe will suit what you need.  Take care and should you build one please send me some photos.  Let me know if this link does not work or if you have any questions.

http://www.docstoc.com47113154oscillating sander patent5402605

 

[Jay Boutwell]

Hi Stan, I checked the link for you and it will open to the page.  Under google search what you are looking for is at the top of the Google page under the link I gave you.  It reads: " oscillating sander patent 5402605 docstoc"

There will be a small thumbnail on the right upper screen and under it is says "download"  if you click on it and it tries to get you to join some type of membership   just click "open link" and it will bypass it and open.

You can print it and also enlarge it but will not let you turn it into a PDF file to save.  You would have to go to print and then change it to PDF file.  It is 7 pages.    Here is the photo of the unit I got by screen capture: