I had been wanting to get a disk sander for quite some time, but I didn’t have the space. That was just as well, seeing as I couldn’t afford one, either. Instead, I decided to make my own to run on the lathe.

I began by making several small disks to serve as the tenon for mounting the sanding disks. They should have a shoulder so as to register cleanly on the chuck jaws, and the tenon should be very near the minimum size of the jaws you intend to use it with to maximize holding power.

I would then mount these tenon disk in the chuck and turn the face flat, then slightly cup out the center to ensure that the disk seats properly when glued on. I cut some large circles out of MDF, taking care to mark the approximate center. After each of the tenon disks was glued on and the glue dry, the MDF disk can be turned round.

I made several of these so that I could keep them in different grits. The paper is applied with spray adhesive by spraying the board and then the sandpaper, allowing it to dry enough to become tacky, and then adhering them together. A utility knife can cut the excess. I sizes the plates so that they were just large enough to accommodate a full-size sheet of sandpaper without any area uncovered.

These plates worked very well, though I found I rarely used any except the coarsest grit.

Shortly after making the plates, I made a small table that could mount to the lathe bed to support the workpiece during sanding.