[OP]
Member
I have seen the 16/32 power feed drum sanders etc.. Does anyone make one that is not so wide? Mostly running boards 7 1/2" and narrower and would prefer a smaller machine. Not quite up to making my own although I have seen some that I like and look like fun.
Hoping for a decent finish but I suspect that I will need to use the ROS on whatever comes out of it regardless. Would like a little feedback on the finish I can expect from say 180 grit on white oak.
Strive for perfection...Settle for completion
Contributor
Have you looked at Grizzly's baby drum sander? Might fit the bill.
Contributor
Ben,
Google 12" baby drum sanders. You will find a few companies that make a 12" model. The only thing I would be concerned about is that it will have a lot smaller motor and a drum sanders needs a lot of power. I have a 25" drum sander and have only used 80 and 120 grit paper on it. Even with the 120 grit there is some work with a ROS after the fact as there are linear sanding marks on the boards when they come through the machine.
I would think if your going to use 180 grit you still would have to step through some paper sizes and wrapping the drum that many times might get a little old very quick.
Bill
Member
I have a small widebelt sander, a Grizzly G9983, and have noticed that some other companies are actually selling a bit smaller similar machine. Mine takes a 16x48 belt, which is a common size and can bought from multiple companies, although I find Grizzly has the lowest prices on the belts. Great thing about my sander is it is open end and you can sand a wide panel by reversing it and running it back through. Easy to change belts to change grits.
Member
Ben, I had a Jet 10/20 drum sander. A mini version of the 16/32 with a 10" drum. I sold it because I just don't have the patience for these sanders, they are extremely slow - you can only take at most 1/32" at a pass, the paper is easily burned with the slightest bit of overload. I got a lot of snipe even after I bought and installed the infeed outfeed tables. When I need something sanded like that I take it to the local cabinet shop and have it run through the wide belt. This is just my experience/opinion - lots of people like them.
Member
You need to determine what length the shortest pieces you will be sanding and make sure whichever machine you purchase can handle that size. For example the Grizzly 12 inch states minimum stock length is 8 inches while the jet 10/20 is 2-1/4".
Last edited by Gene Takae; 07-07-2015 at 4:14 AM.
Contributor
Location? There is a Jet 10-20 on Craigslist in Boston for short money right now.
Last edited by John Lanciani; 07-07-2015 at 5:26 AM.
[OP]
Member
I am in sw CT- interesting points all. I will look at the 10/20 models but most of the negative reviews I have read online are similar to compllants here. No power, finicky set up, limited cut. I am running 1x6 maybe 5' pieces and could build full infeed and out supports but wonder if I should just get a larger machine.
Any owners that really love their smaller sander? If so, being that its a drum sander, how is the finish on white oak? Can you get it fine enough to put a natural finish on or are you still fixing it up wiht the ROS? I suspect so just because it would leave straight sanding marks.
Strive for perfection...Settle for completion
Member
I had the Performax 10-20 for a while. I think Jet bought them because it is the same machine as the Performax. I have since upgraded to the Performax 16-32, but I used the 10/20 for several years and I liked it. The only thing I didn't like about it was that I could NOT get the conveyor belt to track straight. It would be fine for a while and all of a sudden it was off center and walking slowly towards one side or the other. I would tweek the tension just a tad and it would either be too much, or not enough.
One day when I was bored and the machine was still new to me, I took a couple of new 12' 5/4 1"x8" Cherry boards (three of them actually) I bought and used this little machine to sand both surfaces smooth. It took a while, but it did a good job. Even just setting this up took a while to get proper support for the boards, but I guess that would be the same for any machine.
You just have to understand that these machines are sanders. They are not thickness planers, or jointers, or whatever. They sand. And since they san, dust collection is not an option, it is an absolute requirement and a shop vac is probably not sufficient. They have 4" dust collection ports for good reason. DAMHIKT.
Just my $.02
Wayne
P.S.
Contributor
I think you should plan on a follow up with your ROS and then by hand before finishing. Drum sanders do a good job but using anything finer than about 120 grit in them is a crap shoot IME; it's just too easy to get burn marks, especially on cherry or similar woods. But with 120 grit my drum sander does a great job on white oak, and it takes very little time to follow up with my ROS at 120, 150, and 180 grit to have it ready for finishing. Actually, I often start with 100 grit in the ROS after 120 grit in the drum sander. It removes the linear scratches left by the drum sander a lot more quickly and I can finish the whole sanding sequence faster.
As others have mentioned, don't expect a drum sander to be a planer. The maximum I can remove with my Delta 18x36 is about 0.010" per pass, but I almost never exceed 0.005". That seems like a miniscule amount, but if you plane about 1/32" fat, that's only 3 passes per side through the drum sander. If you used 180 grit, you'd have to take even smaller bites. If that seems like tedium, a drum sander is not for you.
John
Member
I have the Performax 16/32 and I really like it for small pieces. If you are planning to run 5' boards, it is going to take a looong time.
[OP]
Member
No issues with chatter or snipe if in/out support is good?
Not sure what to do. Think I am going to find a used machine. How long to run a 5' board?
Strive for perfection...Settle for completion
Guest
Any wide belt or drum sander still not give you a finish ready scratch. I spent over $40k on my wide belt, everything still needs to be hit with a orbital after it comes out.Originally Posted by Ben Grunow
Guest
Proper hold down roller tension determines snipe. Granted, if you've got a long, unsupported piece, you will get snipe when it overrides the strength of the springs on the hold down rollers.
Member
I will have to say that in my experience, proper support is crucial. If the board is not properly supported, with a 5' board you might not get snipe, but what you might get is a slight variation in the thickness of the board along its length. When you first engage the feed rollers, if you just let the board go there will be extra upward pressure on the feed rollers caused by the overhanging weight on the infeed side causing the board to be a couple of thou thinner. As the board progresses through the machine, the pressure will equalise and the board will then be those few thousandths thicker. And then again once the board progresses through and starts to overhang on the outfeed end, the pressure on the feed rollers starts increasing again and the board will thin once again. All easily alleviated with proper board support.
I have also noticed that once you have your drum set up to run perfectly parallel with the conveyor, there is still a very slight amount of flex in the drum support mechaism. Varying widths of boards might vary a thousandths or two from one edge to the other. The edge closest to the motor where the drum is supported might be a couple thousandths thinner than the other edge that is away from the supported end. You probably wouldn't be able to measure this with . . . say . . . a 1" wide board, but a 8" wide board might be a few thousandths thicker on the outboard edge. The thicker the cut and the faster the feed rate, the more pronounced this will be. Once you get near your final thickness, I have found that a couple of passes without changing the depth alleviates most of this (you will still remove a couple of thousandths of material) , and occasionally swap the board end-for-end horizontally usually takes care of it.
As for how long to run a 5' board . . . it depends. What wood, what grit sand paper, what depth of cut, how wide of a board all makes a difference. My 16/32 has a variable speed conveyor that has a speed scale that reads from 0-100. I don't know what that scale is supposed to be, but it seems if I divide by 10 I get a rough approximation of feet-per-minute. So setting the feed rate at 50 would be somewhere around 5 fpm. At 5 fpm, your 5' board would take one minute.
The depth-of-cut handwheel is labelled 1/4 turn = 1/64" (that's about .060"), and 1/4 turn is about the limit for me since I have some power issues. Sometimes even less. I just sanded some 8" wide pieces of hard maple with 80-grit sand paper installed. I turned the depth-of-cut wheel about 1/6 turn each pass, and used a feed rate of about 70 (7 fpm?). That gave me a nice unburned surface. Others may push their machines harder, but if I get too rowdy with mine, the circuit breaker pops. :-( Did I mention I have power issues?
I don't know if my experiences are typical, but I hope this helps.
Wayne
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