Shortly after opening up my first shop, I built a thickness sander. My father-in-law provided the motor and the drum, both with a pulley. I built the frame. It worked well and I had used it for more than fifteen years.

Unfortunately it wasn’t wide enough for the top or the back of an acoustic guitar, so I could only sand the halves. After joining them I always had to finish sand them by hand. This was very time consuming and I hated doing it.

Therefore I decided to replace it by something that is wide enough for jointed tops and backs. First I planed to widen my own design but because this proved to be too time consuming I decided against it and bought a brand new machine… 

Here it is! It’s a cool design and so far I’m very happy with it. Wide enough for guitar tops and backs, with a conveyor belt design that moves the items to be sanded… With my own design I was the one pushing the pieces through the sander…