New tool to speed up Cedar Grilling Planks (and everything else!)

"She's a beaut, Clark!" Check out my new tool for speeding up production in the shop:

"Yeah, that's great. But what is it?" you might ask. Well, I'm glad you did. It's an overhead drum sander. Performax 22-44. It can sand up to 44" wide boards for doing cabinetry and such.

I've been wanting one of these for a looooong time. Bought this one from a really nice lady up near Redmond- she made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Here it is in action- the bottom is a conveyor belt that carries the piece to be sanded at an even speed, while in the overhead arm, there is a big drum with sandpaper wrapped around it, that spins at a constant speed. The conveyor speed adjusts depending on what setting you want it and what you're sanding.

Here is an unsanded plank (top) vs a sanded plank after two passes through the machine. SWEET!

Before this machine, it would take me a pretty decent amount of time with a hand sander and belt sander to get them in this kind of finished shape. Does it make any difference once it goes on the grill? Not really, but it looks better sitting on the shelf in the store, for sure.

 After sanding, the rough edges are taken off on the table saw.. This also cuts the planks to even width. Since I'm only taking off a little bit on each side, it produces these tiny little cutoffs- which can get caught in the saw. Not super sweet. I need to remake my zero clearance insert for the table saw so it's a bit safer. (I'll post a blog update on that when I do it so you know what the heck I'm talking about...)

  

All those tiny little cedar strips make for great kindling, but it feels as if I'm trying to herd kittens picking them all up. I need a bucket next to the saw to put them in when I do the next run.

 

 Here's what happens when you get sloppy- doing all the edges at one time became a bit monotonous. I lost focus picking a piece up and fumbled it right into the spinning blade. Luckily I didn't try to catch it and end up severing my hand off. 

My upgraded plank branding iron jig. Left the last one in the rain and it buckled up. The cedar planks slide in and are automatically centered against the rails. All I need to do is reference the hot branding iron against the bottom and right side, then press down for about 4 seconds, and it's branded. Not too sexy, but totally efficient.