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I recently discovered Seth Rolland's furniture website and unique technique /style. enter image description here

The fan shaped top is cut from one piece of wood using a bandsaw alternating cuts from opposite sides that stop short of cutting the full length thus creating a very flexible shape, one I want to explore.

The first problem I thought of is how to clean up the sawmarked edges created by the bandsaw. I don't have a vertical belt sander, but even that tool will be limited by its throat width to several inches. Is there alternative I could use?

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  • Duh! I realized after writing the question that the fan shape can be reversed to give greater access to all but the joined end of each cut line. This will significant reduce the amount of hand work needed. Sill, I welcome any other suggestions.
    – Ashlar ♦
    May 30, 2016 at 13:51

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If I were going into production, a dedicated special purpose sanding machine would seem appropriate.

However, for the one-off sort of project that most of woodworking SE contributors are likely to do, good old hand sanding, coarse to fine, will probably work fine.

The big issue is to make sure that when sanding deep in the throat near the end of the cut, I would attach a C-clamp (properly padded) on the uncut portion to prevent the accidental splitting that could quite likely occur should the sanding get overly enthusiastic.

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  • The clamp is a good idea, I always sand enthusiastically :)
    – Ashlar ♦
    May 31, 2016 at 23:49
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The guy I bought my used bandsaw from, only got a new one because of one feature I found fascinating. He wanted a bandsaw he could fit a sanding-band into.

I just tried looking for this on international (English) sites, but couldn't find anything on it. The brand he bought was either a "Hammer" or or "Felder", which to my knowledge are quality woodworking tool companies that sell (and i think produce) in Austria and Germany. I couldn't find decent pictures of those though.

But here's a link to a page describing just such a bandsaw (in German, sorry) accompanied by pictures illustrating the benefits of such a system quite good in my opinion.

The belt-rest could be made quite thin, or left out entirely if one knows what he's doing. The pieces that could be sanded can be quite a lot bigger than with your default belt sander. Depending of course on the cut-height, distance between blade and machine base and so forth.

PS: i would have added the images directly, but i'm not quite ready to be sued by some copyright enthusiast :)

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  • I think I'd just sand it by hand, using a long thin sanding block... after using the cleanest-cutting blade I could get to make the fan in the first place. Or perhaps even consider a fine-toothed handsaw; that might reduce the sanding enough to be less work overall.
    – keshlam
    May 30, 2016 at 15:22
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    There's no copyright issue with posting of images on SE, although attribution is usually desirable it is often left out. Images harvested from all sorts of sources, including directly from retailers' sites, are liberally used to illustrate or flesh out Answers, as time and individual preference allows.
    – Graphus
    May 30, 2016 at 15:33
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    There just happened to be a small German flag in the top right corner of the link. Clicking it brought up an Olympic Committee sized collection of flags, so I clicked on the US flag and got the page in English. One could, of course, click on any of the other flags to view it in a different language, whether you can read & understand that language or not. ;)
    – FreeMan
    Sep 14, 2016 at 19:18
  • Also, a Google search for "Zimmermann PS-S" brings up several purchasing options, though they all seem to be used machines. It should give you the idea of what you're looking for.
    – FreeMan
    Sep 14, 2016 at 19:20
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http://www.amazon.com/Makita-9032-4-4-Amp-8-Inch-Variable/dp/B0000614UT The link is something that will more than likely set your standard for this. It is a narrow and long belt sander that should get a good area of what you need to sand. Otherwise for the rest your better off by hand. When doing it by hand I would fold it up so it is more sturdy while working with it.

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    An interesting possibility. The tool is still fairly wide relative to the kerf width gaps left by the blade although there will only be a limited area near the end of each cut that will not be accessible. Those areas may only be available by hand.
    – Ashlar ♦
    May 30, 2016 at 13:46

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