Delta Drum Sander Abrasive

[Christopher Pine]

I have a delta older model 18 inch drum sander. I have searched the forum archives and found some good info from previous posts. Here is my question can I wrap wider than 2 inch rolls on the sander? I would guess I may have to wrap it at a little different angle? Am I all wet on this? When you buy the precut rolls they are 2 inches wide. IF I purchase the bulk rolls from industrial abrasives they start at 3 inches wide...

Chris

[Ronald Blue]

I would think you could use the 3" without any problems. You will need to experiment on the angle at the end. My 24" Grizzly uses 6" wide paper.

[Mike Cutler]

Yes you most certainly can. You can also buy the wider 4-6 inch strip or belts and cut them down the middle. You'll save a ton of $$$$.

One tip is to make your first strip from butchers paper. It's a trial and error exercise, but once you have it down just transfer the shape to a 1"x4" board, ripped to the width, and you now have a permanent template to cut your strips from then on. It'll take a morning to get it right.
I had a Performax 16-32, similar to your Delta, that I sold when I got my larger dual drum sander. It's the only tool sale I've regretted. I liked that 16-32" sander.

[Carl Beckett]

Making a template is a great idea (I save the original piece of sandpaper as the template - it rolls up for storage that way, but a wooden template would be nice

Also, I saw a post on here suggesting a particular abrasive for reducing dust? Did some searching but not finding it (maybe Mirka Abranet strips?). The point being that you can buy whatever type of strip material you prefer and are not limited to the specific papers offered by the manufactures of the equipment.

[Christopher Pine]

Mike- I thought of doing that with the 4 inch belts (splitting them) I may just do that as I would just use what I now have as a template. Yes, I purchased a 4 pack of pre cut rolls and I figure I could buy about 3 to 4 times that much material for the same money with the bulk roll.
Thanks for the confirmation about this... I went through some paper recently doing a particular project and sure would be nice if it didn't cost me so much to replace.
Thanks!
Chris