ACME Edge Sander Back In Service

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

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Several years ago I ran across an ad on CL for woodworking equipment just down the road so I decided to take a look. It was some of the roughest looking machinery/tools I'd ever seen. Guy selling them was not a woodworker and obtained them from his non-woodworking father-in-law who bought out a cabinet shop to flip the tools and lost his ass on the deal. The best of the bunch that I could use was an ACME edge sander so I made him a fair offer and got it back to my shop. There it sat for a couple years until a few weeks ago when its number came up.

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I took it completely apart and in the process learned it had a rough life. The idler pulley bearings wallowed out the pulley to the point when spun it was metal rotating on metal with the bearing not moving. The top motor bearing also took a turn on the end bell doing similar damage. Also the back-stand idler assembly was frozen, no real surprise given the damp barn it had been living in for quite some time. To add insult to injury I broke the back-stand idler while pressing it apart. Thankfully a fellow on owwm.org heard my cries for help and made an outstanding repair saving the sander from the land fill.

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The idler pulley repair was accomplished by a machinist friend who turned steel sleeves that now live between the new bearings and pulley. You'd have to look really hard to even see them. The original 3/4 hp motor was shelved in favor of a new-old-stock Doerr with the same frame and twice the power. The wooden stand that held the sander up went straight to the burn barrel and was replaced by a stand I welded with angle iron. It's painfully plain, but damn it does the job with no fuss. For the new top I opted for a single piece one inch thick Russian birch topped with white Formica. For dust collection I made a shroud that gathers dust as it comes off the contact wheel. I spent a fair amount of time looking at what other edge sanders do for dust collection and saw some pretty slick home designs, but in the end went with a simple one piece hood that clamps in place and is positionable to the best dust collection point. Finally, I added a drum switch allowing me to work left-to-right on both sides of the table and shoot dust towards the hood.

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With this project done I'm turning my attention to another sander, a Baldor vertical belt, all the while waiting for Hermance to deliver a cutter-head for my restored PM 221 that sits waiting.


Eric
 
Wow that looks great. I have the exact same model that was my dads. Unfortunately I think it needs a motor. It has ran thousands of hours though in a commercial shop. They are great machines.
 
Jode

With that many hours your pulley may have wallowed out like mine did. But that can be remedied too. There are a surprising number of these little sanders around. Shop owners must have been fans of Looney Toons and knew the brand and other quality items made by them, like anvils, bomb detonators, jet roller skates, earthquake pills, etc. :)

Eric
 
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Eric Patterson said:
Jode

With that many hours your pulley may have wallowed out like mine did. But that can be remedied too. There are a surprising number of these little sanders around. Shop owners must have been fans of Looney Toons and knew the brand and other quality items made by them, like anvils, bomb detonators, jet roller skates, earthquake pills, etc. :)

Eric
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Lol exactly ! My dad bought it New and I'll definitely get her up and running again one of these days
 
Jode

Your dad didn't happen to order the portable black hole did he? I've always wanted to see one of those.

Eric
 
That looks great. That would get a lot of use in a general hackjob shop like mine!

That drum switch makes me smile, that is a favorite among the boat hoist builders at my parent's cottage. I've ran a lot of boats up and down with one of those.
 
Tod

Thanks. Drum switches like it are fairly common on woodworking machines. It works on both three phase and single phase motors. I've seen them on plenty of boat lifts too. Just don't forget to shut it off when the boat is out of the water. Wouldn't want to raise the boat into the roof :)

Eric
 
You did a nice job on that machine. I saw one just like it in a barn a few years ago, but didn't take the time to study it. Looking at yours I can see how useful it could be, I like the ability to sand a soft contour. You lucked out finding someone to repair the cracked mount, it's real easy to destroy cast fittings while attempting to weld (as you know). I'm a butcher with a MIG, I wonder if that's how he did it, or with one of those aluminum rods you can torch into the crack? That's more my speed. [smile] Either way it looks good.
 
SJ

Welding cast iron is tricky and the results are debatable in terms of strength. It was repaired by traditional brazing which is more than sufficient in this application. Thanks.

Eric
 
Eric Patterson said:
SJ

Welding cast iron is tricky and the results are debatable in terms of strength. It was repaired by traditional brazing which is more than sufficient in this application. Thanks.

Eric
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Ah, the piece was so bright in the photo I was thinking cast aluminum. Yes, definitely brazing was the way to go. Glad it worked out for you.
 
Eric Patterson said:
Jode

Your dad didn't happen to order the portable black hole did he? I've always wanted to see one of those.

Eric
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He did, unfortunately it's sucked in everything around it including itself and vanished.
 
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