Sanding wheels throw a curve at furniture production: Peters-Revington ups production of contoured parts with specialty sanding machines.

Sanding machines with wheels that follow the contour of shaped wood furniture components are helping improve productivity and maintain quality at the Delphi, IN-based plants of Peters-Revington Furniture, part of Chromcraft Revington Inc. The sanding wheels are used to process a variety of components from Queen Anne table legs to raised-panel cabinet doors.

Founded in 1946, Peters-Revington produces a broad line of solid wood furniture that includes occasional living room tables, bookcases, entertainment centers, home office furniture, roll-top desks and similar products for sale nationwide. Major species used by the company include oak, cherry and maple.

Many of the components used in the finished products include configurations such as compound curves, changing contours or edges with multiple steps. These non-linear parts cannot be sanded on conventional belt sanders, and are instead generally finished on a mold sander or brush sander.

Until recently, these operations required long machine set-up times and the skills of experienced operators to fit the mold or brush to each of the contours. These limitations restricted the use of contoured parts to higher production quantities and minimized scheduling flexibility.

That Was Then ...

Now Peters-Revington uses sanding machines from Grinding & Polishing Machinery Corp. that are equipped with G&I"s Wolfhead sanding wheels. Mounted either horizontally or vertically, the wheels consist of strips of abrasive that are held together with a cloth loop and are wound around a pin assembly in the center of the wheel. These strips extend between and beyond brushes that work the abrasive strips into and around corners, fluted surfaces, hollow surfaces and small openings.

As the abrasive wears away, new material is released so the wheel diameter remains constant. This eliminates the need to adjust speed or position to compensate for wheel wear and provides a consistent finish for both contoured and fiat parts.

According to R. Lynn Brandon, executive vice president of Peters-Revington, the sanding wheels are used to sand a wide variety of components that are too small to finish efficiently using traditional mold sanding equipment. "It is difficult to maintain crispness with a mold sander when there is a sharp radius or contour change," Brandon says. "The brush design conforms to the shape better without distorting it."

Brandon adds the sanding wheel design works especially well on oak, which in addition to being hard, is often brittle. "It breaks the edge just enough to remove the sharpness. It leaves a crisp edge without a sharp edge that might splinter or injure someone," he says.

To further boost productivity, Peters-Revington uses several machines with dual brushes mounted on the ends of a horizontal arbor so two operators can finish multiple parts at one time. This configuration is used for sanding everything from table legs to cabinet doors edges.

Some types of edges on flat panels lend themselves to sanding on a table sander with a vertical arbor. Brandon says Peters-Revington has found that either type of machine handles the switch from one part to another with ease, making it cost effective for the company to handle smaller lot sizes.