WOODWORKING QUIZ for 14 May 04

[Ralph Jones]

Good Morning Mates,
While sanding a series of flutes in a project recently. My fingers got severely cramped while holding the sandpaper around a dowel.

Can anyone come up with a better way of doing this chore?

Respectfully,

[Grunt]

Get your wife to do it.

[nik]

now now grunt, we all know that's wrong! They are used for cooking and cleaning. Now, seeing we are answering a yank (no offence ralph) i think we should answer the question the way a yank would. We should just outsource the sanding with the dowell to china and get them to employ 2 year olds to do the work for us at 2 cents a day. And when they turn 3 years old, they still get just 2 cents a day. It's what i call a win for us situation.

[Eastie]

Nik, (sure sounds like you are missing the "e" of the end of your name?) surely you can see the lack of detail in your proposal. Firstly the Chinese venture is only the short term plan to get either Taiwan or Pakistan to drop their price to 1 cent per hour. Once this is achieved the operation will be relocated.

Of course, in the Chinese venture where there was a luxurious 2ct per hour they could afford to use glue to stick sheets of sandpaper to pieces of board that were rounded on edge to fit the flute diameter and were large enought to grip.

[Bob Willson]

If you can find a lump of timber about 4 ft long and 6" * 6" (look Ralph, imperial measurements) you can carefully nail screw and glue a bit of doweling to the side of it and then nail screw and glue a bit of sand paper to the dowel. The handy size of the main piece of timber will obviate any further cramps.

[Ralph Jones]

Good Morning Mates,
You all have responded with some good answers, and I thank you for your input.
The answer that I was looking however is as follows;

Wrap a piece of sand paper loosely around a 3" or larger door hinge and close the hinge drawing the sand paper taught. A binder clip keeps the whole assembly together. Flipping the hinge over and moving the binder to the barrel side of the hinge also gives you a nice square edge for sanding into corners of dadoes and grooves.

Thank you for your support.

Respectfully,

[Bob Willson]

Hmmm. Your answer is almost as good as mine Ralph.

[Ralph Jones]

Thanks for the compliments Bob, I think?