Question about effectiveness of robosander

[Gothika777]

I was just wandering if anyone has used the robo sander attatchment instead of a router bit to finish the bodies after rough cuitting with a bandsaw?

-How does it compare with the router method?

[gtrmaker]

Robosanders can be safely operated even by one of the zombies in the classic movie "Night of the Living Dead" and achieve acceptable results once you've bansawn the wood close to your outline.

Routers are great if you know what you're doing and you have to be VERY careful to pay attention to cutter rotation and direction of feed. Otherwise you'll watch a nice big chunk of wood come tearing loose. Or, better yet, launch the body across the room only stopping once it's come into contact with an immovable object. Usually this is a concrete wall.

FWIW I finish my bodies with a router table and a top bearing upcut spiral pattern bit.

[Gothika777]

The reason I am interested in the robosander, is that I am concerned about the saftey of using a large router bit and by the fact router bits can tear chunks out and leave bearing marks.

[C Squared]

Originally Posted by Gothika777

The reason I am interested in the robosander, is that I am concerned about the saftey of using a large router bit and by the fact router bits can tear chunks out and leave bearing marks.

You need to make sure you're using a new quality bit, and working in the right direction, and not taking a lot off. I juts picked up a robo sander since $1 replacement sleeves made more sense then constantly buying a $25 router bit. Plus a had a bit come flying through the air

[bfcg]

Yes bit can and will fly through the air if you do not respect and appreciate the dangers.
Follow the safty instructions and keep your machines clean and properly maintained.
A Robo sander will cost you more than a dollar per sleeve and it will take hours and several sleeves to get the job done if you are using it to do the job of a router or shaper.

[Standard_59]

Originally Posted by Gothika777

The reason I am interested in the robosander, is that I am concerned about the saftey of using a large router bit and by the fact router bits can tear chunks out and leave bearing marks.

I was looking at the Robo a while back, Gothika. Don't know if you're read it - or this post is related, but, I bought a copy of the Martin Koch book last week and he mentions he has a ROBO. He then mentions he wasn't happy with the size of 'template following wheel' and made his own one, from wood.

The other point he mentiions, as above, is about Chunks being torn out by the Router ---- and removing Material as close to the Template itself to avoid this.

[Gothika777]

I know some people use oscillating spindle sanders, so are these slow as well?

[Sunburstman]

gothika, I have an oscillating sander I bought from Harbor freight for around $90.00 and it works great for sanding the sides of guitar, but the way I do it is cut the guitar body where you have 1/8 wider from your template line and then use the oscillating sander to sand the body down to 1/16 - 1/32 closer to your template line then hand sand with a block of mdf material to get ou any bumps, this does take longer, but you be pleased with the results you get!

[gtrmaker]

Originally Posted by Gothika777

I know some people use oscillating spindle sanders, so are these slow as well?

The problem with an oscillating spindle sander is that it won't follow a pattern. They are strictly for freehanding a profile. I have a really nice Grizzly one and wouldn't be without it. For a real nice benchtop one that doesn't cost much money get the Rigid oscillating drum/belt sander that you can get at Home Depot. You'll find many uses for it!