Home made French Wheel sanding disk

[Mrpickwick]

Hi Everybody

As I now have a bit more space at home for pipemaking , I've been thinking about the different tools etc I'd like to have in my workshop. I've seen many photos of people using the metal sanding disk called the French wheel ( for sanding stummels etc ) which has a long shaft and is mounted onto the end of an electric motor. I was thinking why does this French wheel have to be made out of metal when you could turn up a curved disk from hardwood etc and use a wood or metal backing plate. I also found this electric motor arbor which is threaded , you can check it out here
http://www.toolsandaccessories.com/r-49 ... fault.aspx

I think you could make a home made French wheel for sanding and because this arbor is threaded with washers I think you could get it tight enough to hold the sand paper and here is a picture of a metal French wheel http://www.pipemakers.org/New0805/frchwhl.jpg

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this idea as I haven't built one as yet

All the best
Don
spedenpipes.com

[KurtHuhn]

Wooden french wheels are fairly common, and come in all sorts of profiles. Most of the wooden one's I've seen come with the abrasive adhered directly to the wood with no cushion though. Seems to me that you hsould be able to make one with little effort.

A metal one should be fairly simple to cobble together from parts readily available at hardware stores (at least here in the States) as well.