Delta 18-36 drum sander-Mini review
As some of you may know, I finally pulled the trigger on a drum sander. I chose the Delta 31-255X, mainly on price, partially because I think my local vendor may have had to substitue this model for the 31-250, probably because of availability. Price paid: $699.00 + local taxes. That also includes the "Free Tool coupon" from Delta and I'm going for the PC 690LR. :D
I didn't buy it on price alone. After reading numerous opinions, I had read about the good, the bad and things in between. The "bad" included terrible vibration, the material table would "lock up" moving it up/down and one person was very disgruntled about the inordinate amount of time it took him to adjust everything "which should've been done at the factory". That notwithstanding, there were enough positive opinions, plus the favorable WW magazine review. What follows are my findings, thus far:
Packaging: Nothing short of excellent. Molded styrofoam for all major pieces, plus additional styro padding where necessary.
Assembly: Piece of cake! The instructions are exemplory and easy to follow. They do indicate two (or more) people to handle some of the aspects of assembly, but I was able to do it by my lonesome without any problems. Fit and finish was excellent throughout and the few parts I did need to tack on to the machine, fit perfectly without any "friendly" persuassion necessary. I stopped at my local Woodcraft on the way home with the machine (felt guilty, I guess) and picked up a set of their retractable casters (normally used on contractor table saws). Being a retrofit, this necessitated drilling holes in the sander's legs. Again, all went easy and works great. FWIW, all the nuts, bolts and allen screws on the 31-255 are NOT metric, but standard issue, even though the machine is manufactured in Taiwan. A pleasant surprise.
Operation: Contrary to what some of the opinions stated, I have experienced no vibration when the unit is running, although there is a bit of a "shudder" when it's winding down. It's kind of a low frequency shudder, so I'm thinking it may well be the belt just as it's coming off load. Others have stated issues with raising the platform up/down, saying it would bind and literally get "locked" into a single position. Again, no such issue with this unit. Then there's the "adjustment" issue. Must've been my day, because the *only* adjustment I made is to zero-in the depth indicator. It doesn't come mounted on the machine, because it goes on after the belted delivery platform is installed.
Performance: I left the factory installed 80 grit paper on the drum. I had a chunk of laminated MDF, about 10" wide by 2 ft. long. Pre-sanding measurement was exactly .749 at all four corners. I drew a series of pencil lines perpendicular to the board and ran it through the machine. I kept cranking the table up by a 1/16th of a turn until I had contact with the board. First pass having contact with the drum, evenly eliminated all the pencil marks. I then took my digital calipers and re-measured at all four corners. I'm impressed: .734 all the way around! Although I didn't have anything handy, which was in excess of 18", I did take the same board and fed it about 1/2 of it through the open end of the sander, flipped it around and did the other half. Once again, even all the way around, this time at .719. One of the opinions I had read also mentioned "extremely severe snipe, worse than what you get out of a planer". Me thinks this poor soul either has a crappy planer or doesn't know how to properly setup/use his equipment! :rolleyes: I did note the very faintest shadow of snipe, but it wasn't even measurable. Furthermore, a guy will want to do final sanding on a piece before assembly/finish.
Conclusion: Either Delta has very pro-actively addressed previous issues with their design, greatly increased their QA at the assembly plant or I just got lucky. Maybe all three! :D If I were to make a recommendation soley based on my own experience, I'd say, "Go for it!" :cool:
Just a few disclaimers: No, I don't represent Delta in any way shape or form. No, I'm not a one-brand too buyer (Delta fanatic or such.). Lastly, this is my first drum sander and I have no A/B comparison which I can do, based on previous experience. :cool:
