Chapter 6

A New Machine

    Now I must ask you to forgive me while I make a slight departure from the harp, and tell you about a little "side trip" I took.  I was going through the most recent issue of one of my favorite woodworking magazines last week, and ran across an article that really excited me.  I can't tell you how many times I've wished that I had a good 12" disk sander for my shop. Well, the latest issue of  "ShopNotes" magazine, issue #49, had photos and plans for the neatest shop-built disk sander that mounts on a wood lathe.  This was exactly what I needed for the next phase of the harp project, so I took a couple of days off to build myself one.

    Looking over the plans, I realized that I already had almost everything I would need to do this.  Just a few pieces of 3/4" MDF,  (medium density fiberboard) a wood lathe, and a little bit of hardware.  It took me about 2 days to build the thing, and I am so pleased with it I could just - spit!  I encourage you all to check this thing out.  You can get more information about it at http://www.shopnotes.com   When all was said and done, I think I spent about $7.00 for the few pieces of hardware that weren't laying around the shop, a few PVC plumbing pieces to hook up my shop vac, and the 12" PSA disk that I had to buy.  $7.00 and 2 days work for a really nice, variable speed, 12" disk sander.  Not a bad deal at all!

    Here is the completed sander, all hooked up and ready to make a harp.  Well, ready to rough down the edges of the pillar and the neck at any rate.  I did have to modify the plans from "ShopNotes" magazine just slightly to fit my particular brand of wood lathe, but that's no hill for a climber.  What appears to be a window under the table is just that.  I needed a panel so I could gain access to the mounting bolt that clamps the table assembly to the tubular bed, so I routed a rabbet around the hole, and fitted a piece of Plexiglas inside.  The table will tilt to 45 degrees, and has built in dust collection.  Is this cool or what?

    Ok, fun and games are over, time to get back to work.  Here I am using the sander to smooth out the edges of the pillar after the 2 halves were glued up.  Nothing critical here, just even up the edges and maintain a smooth curvature on the inside and outside of the arc.  The ends of the pillar are still uneven, but I'll just cut them square on the radial arm saw when I'm through here.

    Here I have clamped the 2 halves of the neck together and am starting to establish their final shape.  The disk sander is great for roughing down the outside radius of these curves.  I'll get to the inside radius later with a drum sander in the drill press.  For now I just need to clean up enough of the outside to allow me to position these 2 pieces together with some degree of accuracy.

    Now this is the part I was really going for.  I need to clean up this end of the neck, getting the edges of both pieces nice and smooth all around this area.  Did you notice the lack of dust flying around while I do all of this sanding?  This whole operation, sanding the neck and the pillar, probably took me all of 15 minutes, if that much, with this new sander.  I'm just pickled tink!  And now that I've got this end cleaned up, tomorrow I can start cutting the mortise and tenon that will fit the pillar to the neck

We're rolling now, on to Chapter 7 !

Move on to Chapter 7

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