Drum Sander....?

Stuart Ablett

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Tokyo Japan
OK, first some guidelines :)

The max size machine that I could stuff into the Dungeon is the 16-32, the 10-20 is also an option, but I think I'd rather get the 16-20

Alex has the Jet and he likes it, the wood that he sanded down for me for the chess set came out beautifully (thanks again Alex!) so I know it works, I know it is NOT a thickness planer.

What I'm looking for is some info on other machines besides the Jet 16-32 does anyone have a similar machine?

I see the Jet for sale at the $1100 price point, with the Yen so strong now that is amazingly cheap, Alex paid 180,000 yen for his machine, now with the exchange rate that machine in the US is 86,000 yen or there abouts :eek: Yes I'd have to pay shipping, but I'm working on that too :D

Any other machines out there I should look at?

Cheers!
 
A completely different kind of large-surface sander is either the sand flee or the v-drum from stockroom supply. These are basically the same thing, I think, with the sand flee being a complete unit, and the v-drum is available in various kit/DIY configurations.

And yes, before anyone says it, I know that these are NOT the same as a drum sander, in that here is no guarantee of parallel surfaces.
(However, I would think that using something like this is certainly no more "non-parallel" than using a freehand Random Orbit Sander, which we all do all the time. :rolleyes:)

I simply mention them since I know Stu's space constraints, and both of these are extremely compact.

(I don't own either of them, but I've seen the v-drum countless times demonstrated at woodshows here.)
 
I have the Performax (now Jet) 10/20, and it's been a real workhorse. Great tool! Reliable, stays accurate. Dust collection is a MUST!

If I were buying one today, I'd go for the 16/32. The extra capacity would be very handy.

BTW, these machines are quite heavy for their size. They're kinda unwieldy to move around much. I have my 10-20 on a cart, but I know you have space limitations.
 
I have the Performax (now Jet) 10/20, and it's been a real workhorse. Great tool! Reliable, stays accurate. Dust collection is a MUST!

If I were buying one today, I'd go for the 16/32. The extra capacity would be very handy.

BTW, these machines are quite heavy for their size. They're kinda unwieldy to move around much. I have my 10-20 on a cart, but I know you have space limitations.

+1 on what Jim said. I've got the 10/20, but wish I had the 16/32, but don't have any real reason to upgrade. It's very unwieldy to move around, and I have mine on a flip top to make it take up less space.
 
The Jet 16/32 is the Performax 16/32 - the manufacturer simply decided to reduce the number of apparent brands.

The newer 16/32 have a control that reduces the feed speed when the motor load rises - a great feature. My 16/32 did not have that feature, so I put on an ammeter, and manually adjusted the feed speed - faster for a shallow cut, slower if the cut was too deep.

Delta has a very similar unit, but the drum is fixed and the table rises and falls (with the Jet, the drum rises and falls with a fixed table). The problem with the Delta is that any infeed/outfeed support is always at the wrong height.

The extra width is a challenge... the abrasive stretches a little, which makes the "far" end slightly loose, and if it chooses to overlap slightly, it will burn that part of the board (proof that you must be sanding a valuable board). If you won't be using the full width a lot, consider the even narrower sander such as the 10/20... I found that I used it far more for rails and stiles than for panels.

The precise thickness is quite valuable on the Jet, and quite accurate. I occasionally do "hourly" shop work for people, and guitar makers were quite pleased with the precise thickness I could achieve (with many passes).

If you are going to use the 32 part of the 16/32 you need to align the drum so that it is slightly higher in the center (so there is no edge line). I often left my 16/32 at that setting - do one side of a board at the end of the drum, them flip it and do the other side closer to the center, without adjusting the thickness.

I found that I only used 150 or 180 grit on the sander. If I wanted to remove more, I used the planer. When I tried 220 I got too much heat, and often burned. I needed to finish with a ROS in any case, since the drum sander scratch lines were not random. so I counted on the ROS for the finest grit.
 
The others I "looked at" (in the virtual not touching with my hands sense) were:

The grizzly lineup, their new 18" looks decent, the moving table is different than the other options (which have a moving head). They also have a 10x20 which is somewhat cheaper than the Jet (dunno on relative quality but it claims 1/4" minimum thickness so I'd assume its less precise...).

Delta 18 x 36 - mixed reviews on longevity. When new people seemed to like it, but reports of weak parts made me wary (plastic teeth on the bevel gears are one thing I've seen several people mention failing) and supposedly the table is harder to adjust if its out of true..

SUPERMAX TOOLS 19-38 - these seem to review well, and have some nice bells and whistles (like built in DRO), other than that its pretty much a straight up performax clone from what I can tell.

Unfortunately they all appear slightly larger than the 16/32, although the griz and the delta have a different motor config so they squeeze a little more into a little less in relative terms.. Relative WxD dimensions below.

supermax 19x38: 24x40
grizzly 18x36 (G0458): 24x35
jet 16x32: 23x32
delta 18x36 (31-260x): 24.5x28.5

The Jet and supermax both sand to 1/32 the others claim to 1/8. Although I didn't consider that a big deal as I'd be slightly nervous going that thin anyway :D

Oh I did consider the SandFlea that Art mentioned as well, but the ability to get equal thickness seemed worth the difference.

I do enjoy having the infeed/outfeed tables, especially something on the outfeed to catch small pieces; but I'm not sure I'd pay for them again instead of just building my own, especially if you are tight on space and build a custom base (which I still haven't done.. time.. sigh..). They're relatively thick stamped sheet metal but still stamped sheet metal... and there is no way to move them out of the way. Having tables that dropped down when not in use would be nice (and I would probably make the outfeed slightly larger if I did that).

My final conclusion was that the Jet was probably ~the best choice in that size. If I was willing to move up the 22-44 or the supermax both look interesting but the extra size and cost weighed in.

The other option I considered was to build from scratch as they're fairly simple machines (and lots of plans for them on the interwebs), but decided that I couldn't justify spending the time vs the cost.

My experience so far has been somewhat limited, I ran ~60 thin (1/8" thick by 3/8" wide and ~16" long) through last weekend and a couple had more snipe than I'd have expected, but I think it may have been operator error as most were perfect and just a couple had problems. I've also run several cutting boards through and a couple of panels. Overall pretty sweet. I actually went to 36 grit on the first couple of passes on the cutting boards - that WILL remove stock :D It did a good job on the panels (they were smaller ~6" wide by ~24 and ~48" long), I haven't tried anything larger yet, unfortunately I got it after I was done with the door fronts I did for my Mom.

While we're here has anyone used this? :
http://beavertools.com/mirka/mirka-specialty-abrasives-1/mirka-abranet-2/mirka-abranet-2.html

I saw it mentioned on another WWing board, looks pretty cool (pun intended?), I do like the abranet on the ROS so it seemed maybe useful here as well. I wonder if you could go finer without it burning as badly...
 
Ive seen pics of your shop stu, so whatever youre doing to make room for another machine , can I borrow your wall stretchers?

Yeah no kidding Allen :doh:
The funny thing is I will be soon adding to my work space, yep, taking over some real estate on the parking level, we have two vans, one we use seldom, it is a 2001 model and has less than 24,000 Km on the clock, ah 15,000 miles, and as we don't need a "Family Van" anymore, we are selling it, I'll be converting that space and the space around my Dungeon entrance to my Metal Dungeon, I'll move some of my tools up there, it won't free up much space, but I don't need a lot for this machine. :D
 
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