What are the "best" benchtop sanders for rocket building?

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OldManRocket

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In another topic I asked you folks what shop tools you found most useful when building rockets. There seemed to be a general agreement that belt/disc sanders, drill presses, bandsaws and miter saws are used most often. I would like to use this topic to find out which benchtop sanders you use and why did you choose that particular brand/model. I plan to be putting together my own rocket building workshop and I want to be sure I outfit it with appropriate tools and equipment. Caveat: I am a firm believer in avoiding "cheap" tools but after doing a bit of research have come to accept that there is a big difference between "cheap" and "inexpensive".

So, to start things off, I have seen that the Wen 6502 4 x 36-inch Belt and 6-inch Disc sander is top rated by many review sites compared to similar units from other manufacturers. It is certainly not what you would need in a commercial setting but is it a good choice for the kind of light duty use it would see in a rocket hobbyist's shop? At only $83 on Amazon it is certainly inexpensive but is it also "cheap"? Does it lack certain features that come in handy when building MPR and HPR rockets. What other sanders would be a better choice?

Oh, and just to keep things from getting out of hand (out of wallet?) please make a distinction between tools needed for "typical" rockets (up to level 2?) and tools that might be needed for some of the monster rockets some of y'all are capable of building. :cool:

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That Wen looks fine to me. The Ryobi that HD sells looks like the exact same unit in a different color.
 
I really, really like my Rikon 6" x 48" sander. I've had one for years. But they're very expensive now, I only paid about half what they go for now. I like the extra surface area on the bigger belt. I'm sure there are less expensive 6" belt sanders out there.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/rikon-6-x-48-belt-10-disc-sander

I also use a 1" x 30" sander a lot. Much more than I ever thought I would. Everything from sanding around the tabs on fins, to odd shaped fins, to sharpening my lathe chisels.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/rikon-1-x-30-belt-5-disc-sander-model-50-151
 
I have the Porter-Cable 5 amp benchtop sander (belt and disc combo) that I bought from Lowes on a 50% off sale, It took a bit of fiddling to get everything square the first time and it is working well for me.
 
The most indispensable attachment for the sander, is a good shop vac! Make sure there are standard large size vacuum fittings on the sander to plug your shop vac into.
 
I own the wen you are talking about and I LOVE it! Its built quite well as far as the body and motor and stuff are concerned. The only things lacking are the disk sanding table and angle slide thingy. Despite that, you get more than what you pay for in my opinion. It tracks the belt perfectly well and the disc sander will turn wood to dust in a flash if you aren't careful. I mainly use it for wood working in my shop but have used it on occasion for rocketry tasks like stacking 4 fins together and sanding them to the exact same shape(again, VERY carefully). Bottom line, I would buy it again if needed a second one. LOL
 
I own the wen you are talking about and I LOVE it! Its built quite well as far as the body and motor and stuff are concerned. The only things lacking are the disk sanding table and angle slide thingy. Despite that, you get more than what you pay for in my opinion. It tracks the belt perfectly well and the disc sander will turn wood to dust in a flash if you aren't careful. I mainly use it for wood working in my shop but have used it on occasion for rocketry tasks like stacking 4 fins together and sanding them to the exact same shape(again, VERY carefully). Bottom line, I would buy it again if needed a second one. LOL

I have that WEN too, and it's very capable. I replaced a sander I bought from Harbor Freight figuring, "it can't be THAT bad", but man, I tried for two years to live with that POS and it felt so good when I tossed it. Get the version with the cast iron base- there's a steel model too available places, and while it may work, the extra mass in the iron helps stabilize and steady.
 
Thanks for all the replies. It sounds like the WEN while not perfect is a good value. One last question: which belt width is more useful, 4" or 1"?
 
The sander I have has a 6" disk and 4" belt. I wouldn't trade it for a 1" belt model. IMHO they have different uses.
 
I own the wen you are talking about and I LOVE it! Its built quite well as far as the body and motor and stuff are concerned. The only things lacking are the disk sanding table and angle slide thingy. Despite that, you get more than what you pay for in my opinion. It tracks the belt perfectly well and the disc sander will turn wood to dust in a flash if you aren't careful. I mainly use it for wood working in my shop but have used it on occasion for rocketry tasks like stacking 4 fins together and sanding them to the exact same shape(again, VERY carefully). Bottom line, I would buy it again if needed a second one. LOL
I cut a lot of G10 fins for a dealer. I would clamp a whole set together and dress down the edges to get them exactly the same before I ran them through the beveling machine.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Rocketry Forum mobile app
 
I have both a 1" and a 4" belt sander (both also have discs), the 1" has some uses for woodworking but I use it more on metals, the 1" does have its uses in tight areas. The 4" I use for most of my woodworking tasks related to rocketry like match sanding fins and beveling fins. The two discs are used for the majority of my power sanding tasks and when combined with my circle jig I can turn out CRs and bulkheads pretty quickly.
 
Oh, and just to keep things from getting out of hand (out of wallet?) please make a distinction between tools needed for "typical" rockets (up to level 2?) and tools that might be needed for some of the monster rockets some of y'all are capable of building. :cool:

I have the WEN sander. I got it free when a neighbor upgraded to something better. It was just about worth the price I paid. As other have noted, it is REALLY noisy. The one I got had some miles on it (I'd guess about a year in a weekend woodworker's shop), and the belt-alignment adjustment needed to be repaired before I could put it to use. WEN tools appear to be a bit of a crap-shoot. They are well-reviewed on Amazon, but they get no love on the woodworking forums. There's a pretty entertaining video here

[video=youtube;9fyzZ7NGap8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fyzZ7NGap8[/video]

of an experienced machinist truing up and upgrading a Valex drill press (IIRC, same manufacturer as WEN just a different marque).

To answer the question I quoted above, you really don't NEED a sander to make high power rockets. It makes some tasks quicker and easier, saving time and effort for other stuff -- for instance, there is a pretty good article in the NAR Rocketry Source Book on making a jig for sizing the OD of centering rings with a disc sander -- but you could build a perfectly capable rocket with nothing but unpowered hand tools. If you have the arm-strength for it, adhering a piece of sandpaper to a reasonably flat piece of plywood will work just fine for evening-up and beveling plywood fins.

Some context for my comments. I am a BAR, a little more than a year in and -- like you -- just getting into HPR. I also had a shop full of tools and called myself a maker before reentering the hobby.

If you are planning to do much scratch building or kit-bashing, the trickiest parts to fabricate/modify without bench tools (IMO) are centering rings, nose cones, and transitions. Again, IMO and from the position of a relative noob (a noob, furthermore, who bought a CNC router at about the same time I started making rockets again) a drill press with circle cutter (AKA "wing cutter" or "adjustable hole saw") and (really optional) a vertical lathe attachment will do more for you than a sander.

The other considerations, of course, are whether you will want to use the tool for anything besides rocketry and how much you like working in the shop. If you don't know the answer to those questions yet then it is probably too soon to receive the advice you are soliciting here. There are plenty of folks here who only build kits.
 
4" belt with 6" disc Ryobi combo sander, an older Delta 1" belt with 8" disc combo sander, and a router table with an 11° router bit.
 
Craftsman 6x48 more than 20 yo now.
Delta 1x?? Bought at t same time.
 

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If all you have for dust collection is a shop vac, and you make a lot of dust, consider one of these:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dustopp...ia-with-2-5-in-Hose-36-in-Long-HD12/302643445
It's a little unwieldy, but it will quickly pay for itself in filters.
For my sander I use a Dust Deputy mini cyclone on top of a Home Depot bucket and run it through a Shop Vac outfitted with a dust collection bag. The whole shebang resides under the sander on a Harbor Fright tool stand outfitted mounted on a Woodcraft tool dolly retractable wheels. I call it my FrankenSander.

The sander itself was on closeout at Lowe’s and had no price. I asked the sales rep if he’d take $35 for it. He countered with $37.50 so I bought it. Then spent probably $100 making the damn thing portable, clean, and mechanically sound. I have not regretted a single penny I spent on it and have used it on many projects. Some were even rocketry related.

Sorry to say I don’t recall the brand (Skil? Wen? PorterCable?) but it was definitely of the Hecho en Chine persuasion.
 
I have a cheap Horrible freight belt sander, works great for occasional use, no good if you are using it every day on a construction site... I turn it upside down, clamp it in a vise and turn it on. (Note throw out the belt that comes with it, get Diablo belts) I made this part to connect a vacuum to it. This fits standard small shop vac tube, (About 1 1/4") The little hose had an adapter that fits a big 6.5hp Ridgid shop vac. Throw out the worthless cloth zipper bag...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3737737
 
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