Grizzly 1066Z drum sander-need input

[Allan Schultz]

We have a commercial shop that supplies live edge slabs to other cabinet shops. We flatten the slabs with an overhead router and then send them out to a commercial shop for final finishing on a Timesaver. This is expensive and we'd like to bring the work in house. The Grizzly 1066Z is a 5 hp dual drum machine, not a wide belt sander, so it will be slower and far less powerful.

That said, has anyone used this Griz in anything resembling a production environment? If so, how well did it hold up?
Thanks for any input

[Jim Andrew]

I just worked over a live edge slab a week ago, it was twisted a bit, so I used my bandmill to resaw it to get a flat surface, then flipped it over so both sides were parallel. It was too wide for my planer, so used my small widebelt sander to grind it down. I have a G9983 widebelt, it is Grizzly's smallest and least expensive widebelt sander, also 5 hp single phase. I do not do woodwork full time, but do a kitchen occasionally in winter. The sander works fine for me, secret is to not try to take too severe a cut. I put the piece in the sander and make sure it will slide through before turning the sander on. I have to sand wide pieces twice, by reversing them to sand across the total width, as it is open end and only has a 15" cut, so it takes 2 times as long as using a large widebelt sander. But compared to the alternative, works very well.