This is a sanding station I made specifically to create a co-planer space for my Flat Master v-sander and my oscillating sander to sit on that allowed out feet onto my assembly table.
The carcass is 3/4 ply, held together with pocket hole screws. I banded all the edges with walnut for color contrast and then added birch splines to the banding as a accent. The whole thing rests on 4" poly castors.
There's an end door (under the oscillating sander) that houses a stand alone dust collection system. It's just a bucket head vac and a bucket top thein-style separator, but both tools are connected to it and it works well enough. Both main tool and the vac system are tied together with a machine-start switch so the vac comes on with the tools and stay on about 8 seconds after they turn off. Which I think helps a lot with keeping the light dust down. ***Since the original build, I’ve pulled out these bucket heads and piped the whole thing into my main DC system. Now I use that section for storage of other sanding goodies…specifically wheels and extra belts.
Leveling the tools so everything lines up was a bit of a chore, and I had to cobble together a leveling system on them to make it all work..and math…
There are two drawers for hand sanding tools and storage, which is awesome because I've got a fair amount of sanding tools.
I finished it in straight amber shellac. My goal, if you can call it that, was to see if I could reproduce that 50s 'shop furniture' color pallet…in an effort to match my shop cabinets which were taken from an old university chemistry lab years ago when they were demo'ing it. To be honest, it's not my favorite style of finish, aesthetically, but it came out the way I wanted it to so I'm happy with that.
This was a fun, functional project that has paid me back 10x over. Having the Flat Master set up the way it is has become my go-to method for level sanding. I added an extruded piece of aluminum track that is dead nuts square to use as a clamp on fence so it also functions like a gentle joiner. Having it coplaner to my assembly table also makes it a great extension for larger projects.
Overall a great built for me functionally!