Besides these rotary motions, these drums receive a slow vertical motion, the amount of which is variable at the operator’s pleasure. This provides for using the full face of the drum on narrow work, while it prevents the formation of ridges or grooves in the work.
For sand-papering true flat surfaces the flat table is provided, there being beneath it a parallel revolving drum, whose perimeter just protrudes through the upper surface of the table. The surface of the table thus serves as a guide to steady the work while the sand-papering is proceeding.
By using sand paper in this manner, every grain of the sand is brought into contact with the work; furthermore, a small area of sand paper is brought into contact with the work, and the wood fibre can fly off and not lodge in the sand paper; while at the same time the angles of the grains of sand or glass are presented more acutely to the work, and therefore cut more freely and easily. Hence the sand paper lasts much longer, because a given pressure is less liable to detach the sand from the paper.
The machine is constructed entirely of iron, and the drum is intended to revolve at about 800 revolutions per minute.
Fig. 3233.
[Fig. 3233] represents a sand-papering machine in which a long parallel cylinder is employed, the work resting on the surface of the table and being fed by hand. In using a machine of this class the work should be distributed as evenly as possible along all parts of cylinder, or one end of the cylinder may become worn out while the other is yet sharp; this would incapacitate the machine for wide work unless a new covering of sand paper were applied.
