Drum sanders with rail and stile doors

[Karl Brogger]

I had a 37" Woodmaster. Sanded hundreds of doors with it, drawer fronts, and drawer parts. I'd send stuff through at an angle just so there wasn't that shock load so to speak so the drum wouldn't slow down rapidly. I'd also alternate the angle so I would be sanding against the sanding marks from the previous pass. I don't know if it was just in my head or not, but it seemed to remove material faster. When you're staring at a stack of 80 doors, you know it'll take forever and a day to get them done.

I actually like crossgrain scratches. I sand everything with a orbital after it comes out. It gives you a good measure of when everything is sanded correctly. No cross grain? Then its done. I have a widebelt now, and I still sand things with that in the same manner.

BTW- nothing that comes out of a drum/widebelt is done being sanded, you still gotta hit it with an orbital to buff it out.

[frank shic]

i agree with chris: i don't use more than 1/4 wheel turns on my drum sander and yes, it's MIND NUMBINGLY slow but it sure does beat having all those valleys that usually occur from sanding just the rail/stile intersections lol

[Chip Lindley]

Well Sonny, I believe all things happen for the best! At least your aversion to drum sanders will leave one less bidder to compete, should I find the deal of the century (and the century is young yet!)

I gotta lotta HP too, in just a double garage. I counted 53hp without using my toes!
P.S. FartMan is a GASS!

[Sonny Edmonds]

Yep, an amazing repertoire. He must have a tube from his intake to his exhaust. Amazing volume!

You can have all the drum sanders you wanna bid on. I'll watch.
I'll even help you gather them up if you want.
I've picked up worse things in my day. Baby diapers, and barf come to mind. LMAO!

Email Fartman to your friends.

[Rick Fisher]

I have a 24" General Drum sander which I have owned for about a year. The more I use it, the more I like it.

I also just purchased a 7 year old 36" General double drum sander. Its sitting in a crate until I can clear a space for it. It draws 33 amps x 220V power, so I need to do some wiring as well.

I expect the 36" drum sander to be a much more impressive machine than the 24". It has double the power and bigger drums. Lately, the only complaint with the 24" sander is it being underpowered on wider panels (18" and up).

[Steve Nouis]

A aggresive random orbit here, it doesn't take long. I'd think about the same as getting rid of the cross scratches unless the stiles and rails are mismatched bad, then the .007 that a drum sander take off would take a long time also. A wide belt sander would be nice if money and space allowed. Steve

[J.R. Rutter]

I see a number of threads about the benefits of sanding rail and stile doors (e.g. raised panel doors) with drum sanders. However, no one mentions the cross-grain sanding issue on the rails.

Are folks sanding the pieces pre-assembly or sanding them after assembly and then 'fixing' the cross sanding on the rails by hand or with ROS. Perhaps you don't need to worry about it?

Thanks,

Roger

This thread has gotten into a lot of other pros/cons of drum sanders, but the main thing that sanding after assembly does is to flush everything into the same plane and remove any glue squeeze out residue. You get cross grain scratches everywhere if you feed at an angle, which is how these sanders work best. Then as a last step, ROS to create a finished surface, sanding to the bottom of the scratches left by the drum. The finer you go on the drum, the less hand sanding is needed. That is why double drums are nice, once they are dialed in.