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Sanders: metal or wood?

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Sanders: metal or wood?
Wawoodman
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#1
09-04-2012, 09:28 AM
I do both woodworking (for a living) and metalwork (as a new hobby.) Should I have separate sanders for wood and metal? I'm not too concerned about the wood being damaged, but I wonder about the risks of sparks in the sawdust.

The same is true about vacuums. A separate one for swarf and dust off of the 2 x 42 belt?
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TomG Offline
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#2
09-04-2012, 10:31 AM
Sparks will ignite the dust in a belt sander. It's happened to me a few times but isn't a big deal since there really isn't much to burn in there. I suppose a dust collection system would take care of the issue, but I don't really do enough wood working to justify it. It might be worthwhile for you though.

Tom
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EdK Offline
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#3
09-04-2012, 10:38 AM
Just be careful with your metal sanding. Don't mix iron particles with aluminum particles otherwise you may get some very damaging excitement. Yikes

Ed
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#4
09-04-2012, 10:57 AM
(09-04-2012, 10:38 AM)EdK Wrote: Just be careful with your metal sanding. Don't mix iron particles with aluminum particles otherwise you may get some very damaging excitement. Yikes

Ed

It might need to be rusty iron to result in thermite, but that would definitely do a number on the old belt sander. Smiley-signs139

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#5
09-04-2012, 11:13 AM
You can actually make thermite out of...other things than just rust. I would say clean the saw dust off as best you can before doing metal and I would think that you would be ok. Thumbsup
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doubleboost Offline
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#6
09-04-2012, 03:02 PM
(09-04-2012, 11:13 AM)SnailPowered Wrote: You can actually make thermite out of...other things than just rust. I would say clean the saw dust off as best you can before doing metal and I would think that you would be ok. Thumbsup

Thernite DroolDroolDroolDroolDrool
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EdK Offline
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#7
09-04-2012, 03:57 PM
John,

You're one sick puppy! Thumbsup

Ed
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Highpower Offline
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#8
09-04-2012, 08:06 PM
Nah. John probably just wants to weld up that loose rail down at the crossing. Big Grin
Willie
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#9
09-04-2012, 09:52 PM (This post was last modified: 09-04-2012, 09:55 PM by SnailPowered.)
Thermite is pretty fun but nowhere near the coolest thing I have gotten to make, at least in my opinion. Making your own blasting caps is super cool but NOWHERE near legal...unless the government is paying for you to do it. Happyno

Look up Sidney Alford sometime. He has (or at least had) a school you could go to and make all sorts of fun things that go boom. It's probably like 100K pounds or something to go though BashBash
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