Wide Belt R Drum Sander...?

[Rick Fisher]

Its a small machine.. I have a 24" Double Drum and that 15" WBS.

If I had to do it all again, I would have gotten just a 24" Wide Belt. I may just sell all my stationary sanders.. (also have a 36" Double Drum, its a sickness) and buy a 24" Wide Belt.

If your finances permit it, just get a big Wide Belt sander..

[John Thompson]

Thanks for the info and reccomendation, Rick. I may just keep my eye peeled for a wide belt on CL or Ebay as I really can't justify a new one not being a production shop. Would be nice but... I only buy what I absolutely need unless I stumble on a deal I just can't refuse as a friend did about 3 weeks ago. He had been searching CL for 6 months and it paid off for him.

Sarge..

[Karl Brogger]

Search for local online auction services. Around here there is two that routinely have cabinet shops equipment on them. Just last week there was 37" Timesavers Speedsander like I have, but a couple years newer and it sold for $4600, + $460(10% buyers fee and no tax). Decent price, I paid $4500 for mine + 6.5% sales tax, through a local equipment dealer. They're about $7500 new.

A couple of weeks ago a single head 43" sold for (I think) $3500. Make use of the trades being in the crapper. Equipment is dirt cheap right now. I seriously doubt everything we'll see used equipment selling this low again for a long time.

[Travis Porter]

I am a recent convertee from a Performax 22-44 Pro to a Timesavers Speedsander Timesaver's "economy" model. I never used either as a thicknesser. My primary use is for leveling panels and glue ups. The difference in speed, accuracy, and smoothness for me is like night and day. I now used the wide belt to finish sand or at least close to finish sand all of the parts for anything I make all the way to 220 grit. Changing grit size is a breeze, something I never did on the Performax just because of the hassle. Many times with the Performax the paper got loaded up or something and ruined.

The negative side to the wide belt for me is the amount of power it pulls. My unit is a 10 HP 3 phase and it SUCKS with a garden hose. I have had to upgrade my phase converter and the power feeding it to 60 amps.

[J.R. Rutter]

It might be worth keeping an eye out for a double drum sander. That was my intermediate step between the Performax and the wide belt. You can avoid a lot of the negatives of a drum sander if you dial in the height difference between first and second drum, then stick to the same 2 grits. The first head can be rougher so it won't load up as fast. The second head is barely removing the scratches from the first drum, so it isn't working as hard. Performax made double drums that had a similar footprint to the 22/44, just a bit wider.

[george wilson]

To answer the question I was asked:The head of the Delta thickness sander is made of 1/8" thick steel,welded to the frame,and the head is quite rigid. The table moves up and down,and is made of cast iron,also is very non deflecting. You can easily adjust the ends of the 2 outboard elevating screws to make the wood absolutely the same thickness all over.You can also very slightly tilt the bed,so you can run 36" wide pieces through,so that the sanding peters out,and leaves no witness mark. The taper is too slight to be noticed.

Even so,you can't use grits below 120,so,the surfaces must still be gone over with finer grit paper. I love my sander. I use curly maple a lot.

The only complaint i've heard about the Delta,or any other sander that uses a continuous abrasive belt for conveying the wood through,is trying to keep the belt tracked. I had that problem with the Delta at work,but haven't had trouble with mine at home. It could be faults in making the belts.

Changing paper is really easy. I advise against the double drum sanders.1:I could NEVER get the 2 I've had to sand the wood parallel in thickness. I put shims to no avail under the pillow block bearings,but never got accurate results established. 2: The sandpaper had to be attached with strapping tape,so it was never changed.Just too much trouble.

If you have seen my work,you will know I like perfection. The Delta satisfies me.

[Steven Valentine]

As a youg guy on a tight budget, I just built my 30" sander from Stockroom Supply in Canada (you gotta watch their pricing as some of it is Canadian $, and it's a little tricky finding their US pricing on their website)...it's a manual feed, but where else would I get a 30" capacity sander for $350, plus the $125 for the Grizzly motor? Built the box out of scrap plywood. Takes a max of 1/16" of stock but sanders aren't meant to remove more with each pass.

[J.R. Rutter]

Changing paper is really easy. I advise against the double drum sanders.1:I could NEVER get the 2 I've had to sand the wood parallel in thickness. I put shims to no avail under the pillow block bearings,but never got accurate results established. 2: The sandpaper had to be attached with strapping tape,so it was never changed.Just too much trouble.

Sounds like the Delta is a nice one - more rigid than the Performax. Do they have a polymer feed belt available? I put one on my Performax and it was much better than the sandpaper.

What double drum did you have? The Extrema that I had was built like a tank, had a steel first drum and rubber second drum, had spring clips for attaching wraps that actually worked, and made many thousands of flat panels and doors in the years that I owned it.

[Chip Lindley]

*Dialing-In* of the 2nd drum is available only on the newer models like the Griz-X Series, etc. Older 2-drum sanders are quite disapointing as to any expectation of a finer grit cleaning up scratches made by the first heavier grit drum. I resign myself to this fact with an older Griz 1066 and use the same grit on BOTH drums, effectively doubling my sanding effort.

IMO, THE *Cadillac* of single drum sanders is Woodmaster! Expensive in their own right, they perform very nicely, when not Pushed! Other, smaller, cheaper solutions are available, but I am holding out for a Woodmaster 52"! Coarse/fine grits 24" wide could be wound onto the drum, side-by-side! Sand everything to same thickness with 80g, then clean it up with 120-180g. It works for ME!

[george wilson]

I have had both types of feed belts,and find the sandpaper MUCH better. The wood sinks into the rubber types,which tends to round off the wood .The sandpaper type is more accurate especially for thin wood,like for guitars. I don't think you can get rubber type belts for the Delta.

[Peter Quinn]

Sarge, once I learned to use it I find 1 3/4HP is fine for the 22-44. Needs a dedicated 20A circuit, nothing else on it, not even a light bulb! I take off .010"-.015" per pass max, not much different than how I use a widebelt, but I cant pass a full size passage door through my drum sander. I have stalled it dead by taking too deep a pass, but then I have done that with a wide belt too. I think a dual drum would need at least double the HP.

The performax i have is a WMH, it has jet knobs on it, probably pretty similar to the new one. I understand Supermax was sold back to the original makers from which performax was originally purchased, and they now make the more industrial end of the old performax line under the Supermax name. Performax is now used to label some really poor tools marked by WMH, and the Jet name appears on all that used to be Performax 22-44 or 16-32 sanders.

I am happy with my sander. I understand the new ones have some kind of ampmeter circuit that automatically adjust feed speed to drum motor load to maximize performance which would be a good feature on any sander if it renders well. i have to guess and adjust my feed speed manually.

[Jeff Heil]

I have the 16/32 and use it mostly for sanding resawn boards and end grain cutting boards. It works well for light passes with smaller pieces. I don't use it for final sanding as it can leave marks even in the higher grits that are difficult to remove without lots of sanding with a random orbit sander or card scraper. Plan on infeed and outfeed support to make it most effective. I use mine much less than I expected when I bought it a couple years ago. It is invaluable for sanding thin boards after resawing and for the end grain cutting boards I like to make.