Rotary Sanders are becoming far more common today and are used to a large extent in the finishing and sanding of kitchen cabinet doors, interior and exterior doors especially if there is surface work that has been done on the face of the door, such as a moulding which protrudes from the door or a groove that goes below the surface of the door that require sanding before finishing. These machines ostensibly work as a conventional sander that is they might have a vacuum table and a feed mat that feeds the part through the rotary sanding head. Rotary Sanding heads sand the product from the top and come in various configurations depending on the manufacturers of the machine. The original machines had a main rotating arm (vertical) with 4 horizontal arms coming off the main arm, which could accommodate one or two rotating sander heads each. These sanding heads are made from strands of sand paper that follow the contour or raised portion of the part. The original machines had only one rotating arm with 4 or 8 sanding heads.
In later years the same machine was available with 2 rotating arms, one behind the other and instead of only 4 or 8 rotating heads, these machines would have 8 or 16 heads. These machines have become far more sophisticated but the concept has still remained the same, head configurations are varied, with some producing better finish than others. Some of these machines now also have the same type of sanding heads in a vertical position so that the parts can be sanded on the edges as they go through the machine.
Denibbers are in most cases for getting into crevices and removing fine hairs and fibres remaining on the wood after the parts have been manufactured. Denibbing sanders in most cases are like a panel cleaner where a brush with fine strands of thin fibers are attached and the head rotates in a circular motion to remove excess fibres.
Finishing Sanders are as their name implies mainly for doing the final finish of a product. Finishing Sanders can be a combination of a larger machine that has numerous heads and the final head or two are used with a fine grit of sand paper being over 150 grit to get a smooth finish. These machines can also be stand alone machines that have one or two heads and will be used just in the final finishing process such as a cross belt / wide belt sander.
MANUFACTURERS OF MACHINES INCLUDE:
Activa, Advance Finishing, AEM, Cattinair, Cemco, Costa, DMC, Fladder, Giardina, Opti-Sand, Quickwood, Timesaver, Virutex.
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