Which is better a 20" planer with spiral heads or 20" with flat AND a 26" drum sander

[Paul McGaha]

Just my $.02 but I would do the Byrd Head on the planer.

That's what I have on mine and I like it a lot in regard to the quality of the cut, how quiet the planer is, and not having to fool with changing knives.

Expect to upgrade my jointer to a byrd head in the near future.

To me, While the drum sander would be great to have, but it's a separate tool and topic from the planer.

PHM

[Jeff Duncan]

I'd go with the drum sander. A sander is an incredibly useful tool and once you have one you won't know how you lived without it. On the other hand I lived without a spiral head for many years, then I bought one, and now I'm back to straight knives! At the end of the day a planer is a thicknessing tool and although the insert heads are nice, they certainly are not a necessity.

good luck,
JeffD

[Joe Angrisani]

I don't know how you conclude that a 20" sander is going to add that much more versatility? Just like there are those who say that light cuts eliminates tare out.

I recently had an order for multiple cutting boards for a customer. I used some nice maple and you would think it wouldn't have any problems. I had an older cast iron 15" planer, and you had a choice. If you make a light enough cut to eliminate the tare out, but it wouldn't remove the indentations from the infeed roller, or live the with tare out.

I ended up removing the tare out on my 12" jointer that has a byrd head.....

I don't get it. Do these machines have a device that weighs the boards? I can see wanting to eliminate tear out, but I don't see why you'd need anything to do with weight measurement.

[Greg Portland]

Do you really plane material wider than 15" often enough to require a 20" machine? It is quite possible you do.

Speaking for myself, I use the extra capacity to run multiple boards in parallel. I stagger the start time so all 4 aren't finishing at the same time. This is of course assuming that the original stock is about the same thickness. If not, I'll make the 1st pass serially and then run the boards in parallel after that.

Oh, to answer the 1st post I'd base my decision on what I'm building. If I'm dealing with large cabinet projects I'd vote for the drum sander. The time saved sanding (vs ROS sander) is going to be a huge improvement (note you'll still need to sand past 180 by hand). If you're working on smaller projects then the spiral head would make sense because the sanding steps won't take nearly as long.

[Bob Feeser]

I love this stuff!

[James Baker SD]

I haven't seen this yet, (maybe I did not read carefully) but I say get the 20" planer with the Byrd head AND the dual drum sander. Its only money. :-)

[James White]

I haven't seen this yet, (maybe I did not read carefully) but I say get the 20" planer with the Byrd head AND the dual drum sander. Its only money. :-)

This would be my vote. Not because its not my money. But because sometimes you can get your knives fresh back from being sharpened and take 45 min. to install them. Then on the very first board. You get a nick in the knives! That really gets me worked up! If I had the $1600 to buy a Byrd Shelix for my 25" Woodmaster. It would be a done deal. I have one in my jointer and I love it.

So get the planer with the Shelix and save up for the sander is what I would do. Or get a smaller sander.

James

[Don Wacker]

I use my dual drum sander to remove the scallop marks left by my Byrd head on cabinet door panel glue ups. I think there really is no perfect head so buy what ever suits you. Im going back to straight knife. The Byrd head does not like planing the skinny edge of stiles and rails for final dimensioning.

Don

[Bob Feeser]

Ok so after all of the help you have been giving me I made up my mind, for more reasons than one, yes a lot more.
1) I'm keeping the 15" planer with straight knives.
2) I'm saving my pennies for the 26" sander.

In free form commenting, and in no particular order this is what I discovered. Planers are not sanders, and even drum or belt sanders are not final sanders. You still need a hand held random orbit sander for the final pass. Yes large sanders save a lot of time getting it down close though.

Planers with straight blades are smoother for a little while than the spirals but due to the weakness of HSS they dull and then the spirals take over and last longer with a better edge. The end product still needs to be ROSanded.

I don't usually run across boards that are wider than 13" so a 20" isn't necessary. Trying to dream of using only one side for rough passes and the other side for final passes is a pipe dream because most of my stock from the mill is 12" or a little wider which would take it over the half a planer mark. If I planed carefully and glued up carefully, I wouldn't need a 20" planer to run glue ups through because the 26" sander would do that, and with greater capacity.

The lesser noise level form a spiral head is an interesting point. I am used to my Craftsman planer which is so loud it is equivalent to a 747 while standing in the runway. this Shop Fox is so quiet it makes as much noise as a random orbit sander. I was shocked even with the straight blades. The online noise test had the results of a planer created 93db of sound with straight knives, and 88db of sound which is a lot quieter with spiral knives. Now that was with planing a piece of wood. The published results for the shop fox is only 82db. I am not certain whether that is when planing stock or just running, but just running it is ridiculously quiet. My brother was in a room right above me, with his TV on down low and he didn't even know I turned it on three times it was that quiet.

In order to use the 20" with 5hp I would need to run another 40 amp circuit into the shop with 8 gauge wire. The wire alone was $200 and then I have to drill the holes through the floor joists in the overhead ceiling, and run 8 guage wire through it. Have you ever tried to feed 8 gauge through joists before? I did when I hooked up the 40 amp circuit for my 5hp table saw. It ain't fun. With the 15" it runs actually 18 amps and the owners manual says it's a 20 amp 220volt circuit which I already have several outlets in the shop at that rating.

I already bought 10' of 4" hose which is what the 15" planer dust hood is. The 20" is a 5 inch and I would have to start all over again to modify my 4" system.

So no matter which one I would keep, the 15 or the 20 the final sanding would need to be done on something other than a planer. So for $2020 I can have a 26" sander which beats it all for capacity and final finish, and zero tear out. (It doesn't replace a planer though for milling rough stock) In the Shop Fox manual they say that the sander IS NOT a planer. I can understand that, but then again, if you were taking some 1" stock down, and you got it even on both sides, so a sander can handle it, and even if you got some tear out that was less than what your final dimensioning would be, let's say 3/4" then you could place the workpiece in the sander and do the final runs and get no tearout. It's interesting that the sander is rated at 1/16" per pass and so is the 20" planer. (Although the 20" planer says it will handle up to 1/8" per pass but they don't suggest it.)

So to wrap this whole thing up. I was trying to make a planer into a final sander, and no matter which head I use, that ain't gonna happen. This is not a dig against spiral heads. If I had the money, that would be a great way to go to. But when you add it up, a 15" planer for $1199 and a 26" sander for $2020 is a pretty sound investment. Besides I am dreaming of having those matching babies sitting side by side in the middle of one end of the shop. You could have them both close to one another and then have the choice of which board to send through which one of them. You only need to access each one on one side. It's just the idea that both of them side by side would look so awesome and not take up that much space. Ok, Ok I know that is the kid in me talking.

[Cary Falk]

Wait a minute!!! Everybody that posted here should be ashamed of themselves(Except James and James for trying for both). We apparently talked Bob DOWN to a 15" planer. That's against everything this site is about. I thought this was a spiral vs straight thread.


All joking aside, congrats on your decision.

[Mike Heidrick]

That sander used is generally at least half the price of it new - Same for the G1066R/Z. Even many Woodmester sanders have that bad a resale value. That will buy a 150/3 and vac to finsih the panels off proper. Shop around.

[Jeff Duncan]

One thing you should know up front, I don't care what the manual says, if you try to remove 1/16" from hardwoods through a sander your going to run into trouble! I wouldn't try that with my 25 hp wide belt. Very generally speaking your going to be taking off stock in the thousands of an inch at a time. For hardwoods you might take 1/16" off in maybe 4 passes, in softwoods you may be able to get more aggressive, don't really know as I don't use them much. Of course it all depends on the specific wood, the grit of paper, the hp of the sander etc etc. but in general don't expect that kind of sanding. Sanders are great machines and I would never be without one, you just have to know what they can and cannot do.

With good sharp knives in a a well tuned planer you shouldn't get too much tear-out. Some woods are definitely more prone to it and it's hard to avoid it completely, but even the insert heads will tear-out in difficult woods, just to a lesser extent. If you have a lot of deep tear-out the sander is going to take quite a few passes to get rid of it. But if your wood is that gnarly to begin with, it's going to be a beast with hand tools also. I'm not a hand tool aficionado as some on here are, but my planes are fairly well tuned and can usually cut tissue thin shavings off of maple. Once you hit those gnarly grained woods though it's either a card scraper IME, or a sander.....and if you've ever spent a lot of time scraping you'll appreciate the sander

good luck,
JeffD

[Jeff Duncan]

&nbsp; &nbsp; One thing you should know up front, I don't care what the manual says, if you try to remove 1/16" from hardwoods through a sander your going to run into trouble! I wouldn't try that with my 25 hp wide belt. Very generally speaking your going to be taking off stock in the thousands of an inch at a time. For hardwoods you might take 1/16" off in maybe 4 passes, in softwoods you may be able to get more aggressive, don't really know as I don't use them much. Of course it all depends on the specific wood, the grit of paper, the hp of the sander etc etc. but in general don't expect that kind of sanding. Sanders are great machines and I would never be without one, you just have to know what they can and cannot do.<br><br>&nbsp; &nbsp; With good sharp knives in a a well tuned planer you shouldn't get too much tear-out. Some woods are definitely more prone to it and it's hard to avoid it completely, but even the insert heads will tear-out in difficult woods, just to a lesser extent. If you have a lot of deep tear-out the sander is going to take quite a few passes to get rid of it. But if your wood is that gnarly to begin with, it's going to be a beast with hand tools also. I'm not a hand tool aficionado as some on here are, but my planes are fairly well tuned and can usually cut tissue thin shavings off of maple. Once you hit those gnarly grained woods though it's either a card scraper IME, or a sander.....and if you've ever spent a lot of time scraping you'll appreciate the sander<img src="images/smilies/wink.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Wink" smilieid="5" class="inlineimg"><br><br>good luck,<br>JeffD

[John Lanciani]

I thought that the 15" planer was DOA and that Amazon had already shipped the 20"???

[Steven Wayne]

I thought that the 15" planer was DOA and that Amazon had already shipped the 20"???

Same here!