[becikeja]

I need to find a way to sand these parts with more efficiency. Automated solution preferred. Pictures labeled 1 are prior to sanding, picture labeled 2 is after sanding. So as you can tell the finish does not have to be perfect, I'm just trying to knock the corners off and round the edges. Currently I'm using a flap sander. With the size of the pieces, this is taking just too much manual effort. I need to sand about 50-100 pieces at a time. The pieces are 1/8" to 1/2" thick.

Any ideas?Attachment 384660Attachment 384662

[Jim Dawson]

I use a small hand fed router table with a round over bit in the router for a lot of second op corner rounding. Should be able to do those in a few seconds each.

[ger21]

That, or a laminate trimmer. I keep one setup with a 1/8" roundover bit for things like that. Takes just seconds to clean up all the edges.

[becikeja]

I was leaning toward the router, but not sure how I could hold the pieces safely. One or two pieces ok, but after being at it a while for 50-100 pieces I'm a little nervous. I was hoping to find a way to automate this task some how,
I'll keep searching, there has to be a way....

[Jim Dawson]

I just built a guard over the cutter that only allows the part to reach the tool bit, but excludes my fingers. But you don't want to lose concentration when you are working with something like that.

I assume you are making these parts on a CNC router. You could just do the round over mid way through the profile op, once you have enough clearance for the round over tool.

[becikeja]

I am cutting the parts on the cnc. I thought about rounding the corners on the CNC but that will only handle one-side and slow the cut time down.
I would prefer to move the parts, once cut to the next step in the process.

Does anyone have successful experience using a tumbler? I've had a couple of suggestions to go that direction, but have had a hard time finding before and after results to see if the effort is worth it to explore that idea.

[ger21]

The laminate trimmer method will be many times faster than any automated process, imo.

[automizer]

I would advise against the tumbler idea you will just trash the large faces and not round over the edges very well. I have tried and ended up with nothing but splinters left over. That was with a rolling tumbler mind you so you might have better result with a vibratory tumbler.
There is always a way to automate something if you are willing to put in the time and money.
Depending what you have available to you; stacking all the round parts with spacers on a large mandrel you could mount it in a CNC lathe. The lathe could round off all the edges, or you with a power sander. If you use a power sander just run the lathe the opposite direction to the sander.
You can look at a small CNC arm to take your place at the flap wheel as well.

All depends on how much you want to go buy or how much you are trying to re-purpose what you already have in your shop

[rocketflier]

They appear to be the same height which makes it easy to route a bunch with a vacuum table. Lay out a bunch on a plywood panel. Draw the outline and some of the holes for alignment pins. Also drill vacuum holes under where the pieces will go. Take a second sheet of plywood (same size) and route out areas where the vacuum holes are and route groves to connect those all together and to a large hole to fit a shop vac hose. Finally glue the top 1/2 to the bottom. Install parts on board, turn on vacuum and run router around all the parts in place.

[aarggh]

I do a heap of this kind of work all the time and as others have pointed out, a cheapo laminate trimmer in a simple made table with the hole as small as possible, really is the far easiest and quickest way to go. When I setup and get in the groove I can literally do a hundred or so in really quick time. I can't think of any way or process that could possibly be as fast let alone faster in a non-industrial environment.

cheers, Ian