Spindle Sander

      I admit that I have a never ending wish list.  It seems that when it comes to shop tools, as soon as I get the item that I feel I need so badly, I move on to wishing for the next more powerful, larger, precision thing out there.    This year for my birthday I suggested to those that I love, that if someone wanted to know I wanted for a birthday present they could get me a spindle sander.   (I love a lot of people when it gets close to my birthday.)   The thing is that when one reaches my age, it seems to be a common practice to just go out and order your own birthday gift or Christmas present and tell everyone thanks.   I know it's probably the wrong concept, but it really works for me.


   And since this practice has become so habitual, I have been told that I have fulfilled my gift shopping for myself through the year "2022".  That seems to include not only my self-generated birthday presents, but the same applies for Fathers day, Christmas, and Anniversary gifts.    To me that doesn't seem possible, but that is what I have been told.     (That being said, I have this great idea of what to get the wife for this year's upcoming anniversary gift.  I know she will love it.)  

      Lately it seems that I have been working on a lot of items that have curved edges.  As part of my continuing ed program, I watch a few wood working videos (during my afternoon naps) to learn of any new procedures that I can use to make my shop experience easier.    The tool that everyone uses to smooth out surfaces of rounded parts was a spindle sander.  (It seems like everyone has a spindle sander except me.)
     Of course for me, a new problem lately is that as I acquire more birthday gifts,  my work space in the shop seems to shrink.  It is starting to look like I may have to take a little time out this January and sort through the scrap pile and toss out some of my extra wood pieces.   (What! Not going to happen!) Maybe tidy up and reorganize my area in order to make the work space a little more productive.
    For now I just did what I have done with a lot of my bench top tools.   I made a little base platform with handles so that I could pick it up and store it out of the way when I am not using it.    Then when I need it, I set it on my work table, put a clamp on the base to secure it down, put on my protection head set that  plays a little sweet country music in my ears, and I sand away.

     What I have done here was to use this spindle sander to smooth out a bunch of little fenders that were used on the trucks that I had written about in the previous blog.  
    Since I am in the basement part of my shop I hook the shop vac to the back of this machine and it really pulls the sawdust down and into the shop vac.   It works really well.   (Less dust in the house.  I'm sure the housekeeper is really happy with my new purchase.) 

Nope!  Sorry!  We don't celebrate your birth day.    

    I have commented in the past that I really don't enjoy sanding wood,   I try to be creative in finding ways that sanding wood would be fun for me.  I'm still working on that.   Yet today as I take inventory of my shop tools (birthday presents)  I realize that the bulk of my storage shelf holds a wide variety of tools that centers around sanding wood. Hmm.