Benchtop Sanders Shape, Smooth and More

While few of us look forward to the dusty, slow and often tedious process of sanding, that “sweat” investment can be even greater if you’re trying to shape the wood with abrasives and not just smooth it for a finish. By this, I’m talking about fairing curves, enlarging cutouts and holes, flattening edges, flushing up protrusions and refining joint angles. When you’ve got 1/16" of oak to remove from a long, curved workpiece, that’s a LOT of back-and-forth with a hand-sanding block. If hand planes or spokeshaves aren’t your fancy, three different styles of benchtop sanders — disc, spindle and combination belt/disc — can knock these sorts of tasks down to size quickly and accurately. They can economize your efforts so much that you might even (gasp!) enjoy the process!

Disc Sanders

The first benchtop sander I bought almost 20 years ago is the 12" Delta Disc Sander you see in the photo at right. I still use it on most projects at some point or another, particularly when convex curves are involved. The stone-simplicity of these machines and their almost bulletproof build quality is why, even after millions of revolutions of use, I’m sure I’ll be passing this tool on to someone else someday where it probably will perform another lifetime of reliable service.

A “standard” disc sander like mine is straightforward indeed: it typically consists of a 1/2hp induction motor mounted sideways in a castiron base. A steel plate fastened to the motor’s spindle spins a disc of sandpaper at a constant