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I'm debating myself over motorized feed on the drum sander. How necessary is it actually?
It would save me alot of money and time to build the drum sander without one. Should I build it without?

Some people do quite successfully.
See http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=31212&p=413018&hilit=+thickness+sander#p413018 for example.
Only thing to watch is if you stop the feeding, the sander will tend to gouge the material you are thicknessing, especially if you are trying to take off too much at a time.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Now that I have a Gen Int'l 24 inch belt drive sander, I wouldnt want o tbe without it .. but before I bought this about a year ago, well over 100 guitars were made in my shop using a shopmade sander with a push sled ... so its not that bad. Mine was based upon the Grit Laskin/Dave Wren article in FWW years ago (grey cover page with nutcrackers on it)

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

It would be nice to have, but not a necessity. It depends on your goals. If you want a production operation get a belt feed. If you are making as a hobby, you can skip it. I make so few instruments, it was not worth the effort and expense for me. Sometimes I wish I had designed mine with enough flexibility to retro fit later though. True you shouldn't stop halfway through a pass, but you should be taking more light passes (rather than few heavy ones). Sending your work through several times on the last setting forgives a lot of errors.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Looks like Fine Woodworking magazine still has the article about the sander Grit & I designed ... but you have to be a member to view it ... but they seem to have a 14 day free trial.

https://finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=33433

I built a homemade drum sander based on the ShopNotes article on building one - the only modification I made was to make the sled wider and the sanding drum larger - 5" - & wide enough for a joined artchtop top or back 18 in ... if you decide to build one - go overkill on accuracy...
I feel mine just has too much slop somewhere ... I also skipped the conveyor assembly... as the plans called for a specific kingsford belt and I couldnt find one suitable for my modifications....
I am now looking for a 24 in General thickness sander.... but they range from $1000 to $2000 in my neck of the woods..
A suitable one can be built however - I messed up on building the Snotes model...
Cheers
charliewood

The Guild of American Luthiers has a blueprint and an old article series on a shop made drum sander that was designed by Ted Davis. Call up Tim or one of the folks at the head office and they will hook you up. It is probably in one of the Big Red Books.

Having used many different variations on the shop made sanders (including Ted's original that the article and plan were based upon and a clone of the FWW model) and also a lot of the newer small scale ones, I'd lean towards buying a nice used one. For all the work you'll put into making a sander, you could build a nice instruments and sell it for several thousand dollars vs. investing all of that time and money to wind up with a $50 craigslist sander when it is all said and done.

Over the years I've used and owned some very nice and VERY large production model sanders, yet the current one I have in the shop is an 18" Delta; bought used for $700 along with a nice dust collector, both only having about 2 hours of working time on them.

There was a period of about five years when I sold all of my machines and did almost all of my work by hand. About twice a year, I'd go over to a local cabinet shop, rent 45 minutes of time on their big $15k sanding machine for $45, and make up parts for the next six months.

j.

I made a drum sander like Pat Hawleys. http://woodgears.ca/sander/thickness.html I made it wider 24". And used 2X6" legs to beef it up. Adding some length to the drum is a good idea. Alot of times, the sandpaper on the ends are not that great, and having a nice center area is a must. I can sand joined tops/backs in it. I push by hand, and like others have said, you cannot stop pushing, or you can get lines that dig in. I try not to take off to much at a time to avoid that. I used a 1 HP dual capacitor motor. It seems to have plenty of power. I also elevated the drum to I can run boards over 4 inches thick under it. I want to make a fretboard radius cradle to make that job easier in the future. One big plus of the machine, it that it eliminates alot of sawdust too.

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Just a quick aside, if your reading this post james .I took a day off yesterday, and read both of articles in the GAL that james c wrote on double basses .It was a vy informative article , as some of the techniques and ideas can be transferred to other luthiery jobs. e.g using steam an HHG to glue tops and backs of guitars to sides. thanks james , I got a lot of good ideas out of it.