If you want to help to get rid of surface markings and create a better product, then sanding your molding with a flap wheel head after the molder is the way to go. Whenever you’re working with molders, it’s very important that you keep the spindle tool sharp, clean and well balanced. By doing this, and making sure that you don’t overdrive feed speeds, you can achieve a decent profile with most molders.

The next step is proper sanding of the material after the shapes have been created. I have found only two methods that will work well for sanding profiled material. One is using a shaped wheel that matches the profile of your product. These shaped wheels are similar in nature to a grinding wheel. These shaped wheels can remove a fair amount of material and will help with removing tooling marks but will not denibb your surface nor help with color balance. You will also need a head to match each profile you want to create.

This is where the flap wheel head comes in useful. They are designed to be flexible, meaning that they shape themselves according to the shape of what’s being sanded. The benefit of this is that very small changes can be made so that it fits a number of different profiles. When you sand using a flap wheel, only a small amount of material is going to be removed, meaning that it can only remove a limited number of tooling marks. Start with good tooling, and the flap wheel sanding can produce great results before applying the primer or stain.

The flap wheel sanding process, will denibb your product. This is to remove the small fibers that pop up when sanded in any other way or when any type of chemical or water is applied to the surface of the material. These fibers if not removed will raise up and set in a dried position causing a rough primer or stain and seal coat. This will require additional sanding time being needed between coats to achieve a smooth top coat.

By using a flap wheel head you can get rid of those fibers and make the sanding time a lot quicker. You will also benefit from the fact that it creates uniform pore opening across the material, helping to create uniform color balance.

One solution is to build your own flap wheel head and attach it to the out feed end of the molder. There are now a number of well priced motors and controllers available. All it takes is a little fabrication work to mount the motor with heads on the out feed end of the molder, which isn’t too difficult. Make sure that it includes the ability to adjust the heads, as this will mean it can accommodate different thicknesses of material. It’s also useful to be able to tilt the heads, which can help when running a profile that has one thicker edge.

Whatever you do, remember that, as the feed rates increase, there is a need for more heads. Two heads are needed for up to 20 feet per minute feed rates. Four heads can give up to 60-70 feet per minute rates and give good quality sanding. Lastly, make sure that the heads counter rotate, as this is what helps to make sure that the fibers are lifted by one direction, and removed by the other.

Your end result will be a better finish that required less sanding between coats and used less chemicals to get there.

Flap Wheels has one of the biggest ranges of tools to help you get the very best results. Check it out today for abrasive flap wheels and much more!

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 9:06 am and is filed under gardening, woodworking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.