Using a flex shaft for bowls

Well, I decided it was time to try out the flex shaft I bought to use with the chuck on the SandFlee.  After connecting all the parts, I gave both the regular and mini round sanders a tryout.  I was not sure how to hold the bowl securely with one hand, but found that placing it on my work table gave me all the support I needed.

It was a pleasure to be able to get into the bowl without having to worry about scraping the top on the chuck.  The bowl I'm working on has lobes and is curved inward (will post pix when finished), so inserting the spinning sander was a little daunting.  However, as long as I remembered not to put the sander down while it was still spinning, I did just fine.

So, I can now say without hesitation that using a flex shaft does allow options not possible with the drill press, and that control of the bowl itself is not as much of a problem as I feared.  The top of my table is masonite.  If it were anything harder, I'd probably put down something to protect the wood.

A Cautionary Tale

Well, I got away lucky, this time. I was trying to sand the inside of a pretty deep box with my inflatable ball sander but kept hitting the opening on the chuck of the drill press and taking off little chunks of wood. I didn't have a flex shaft, but I did have a 12" extension, so I attached the ball to the end of the extension, chucked it into the drill press, and started to sand. Well, either I forgot to tighten the chuck or the rotation was just too fast, and the long shaft just sheared right off and sailed across the garage. Fortunately, nothing was damaged (including me) but it was pretty scary.

I removed the little remnant of the shaft remaining in the chuck and started sanding again. Suddenly the whole chuck, including the taper, feel right off! I guess the force from the spinning extension loosened the taper enough so it just slipped right down. We tapped it back in place, and it seems fine, but that's one experience I'm not going to repeat.