Mechanical Feed for Homemade Drum Sanders

[Bow Bender]

I have a homemade drum sander that works just fine except I have a problem of maintaining a consistent feed rate by hand pushing material through it.  This causes a wavy surface on the material that is fed through.  Has anyone devised a homemade mechanical feed for one of these? Any ideas on how to make one?

[Crooked Stic]

If your table is stationary and you adjust the drum up and own then you can rig up a roller on each end of the table and some sort of belt around it. then a crank on one of the rollers to feed with. If  not then you are better off pulling the stock thru instead of pushing it.

[BMorv]

http://www.stumpynubs.com/two-stage-drum-sander.html

This is the only homemade one I've seen.

[Flem]

I also have a homemade drum sander. The only time I get the scallops, is when I'm grinding 6' lams. I found its helpful to have a roller stand on either side of the sander bed, about 2' away. Ive though about mounting spring loaded rollers above the table to keep pressure on the indeed and outfeed sides also.
I guess I have got pretty good at being a human feed mechanism. Make sure you can move yourself smoothly from front to back while your grinding. They are not too hard to true up by hand afterwards.

[fujimo]

the rollers that go on a conveyor belt system are really cheap from a castor and wheel supply place, and they have bearings in them already_ set them the right distance apart with a 4x36" 180gr sanding belt being your feed belt.
, as for a low speed motor to drive it, i would use a windscreen wiper motor used from the wreckers- we used to use them as the motor on our sheep and pig roasting spits- they last forever- lots of torque- hook up to a 12v battery.- or transformer.
set up a pulley system to power the one roller/
 easiest way i can think of

[Buemaker]

I have springloaded pressure rollers on this one, no motor feed drive. I get very good results, once you get the hang of it.