Thinking of buying an edge sander

[Joe Cowan]

I ordered the Jet yesterday. It will be here in two weeks. Thanks for all the advice.

[Joe Cowan]

Got it yesterday and tried it out. As I expected, the dust collection is poor and it looks like a 9th grader designed the dust port. It actually hits a bolt on the motor as it swings out of the way. Other than that, an excellent machine. Very easy to assemble, and the finish is excellent. I fired it up, and after adjusting the belt, used it. I love the ability to lay the belt down and use it as a flat belt sander, or raise it to 90 degrees and use it as a edge sander. I am running out of space in my shop now!!

[glenn bradley]

Got it yesterday and tried it out. As I expected, the dust collection is poor and it looks like a 9th grader designed the dust port. It actually hits a bolt on the motor as it swings out of the way. Other than that, an excellent machine. Very easy to assemble, and the finish is excellent. I fired it up, and after adjusting the belt, used it. I love the ability to lay the belt down and use it as a flat belt sander, or raise it to 90 degrees and use it as a edge sander. I am running out of space in my shop now!!

The guard assembly mounting slots are "T" shaped. If you lift the guard up before locking each position the dust port / cover hits less. It took me awhile to automatically lift up on the dust port when I am swinging it out of the way. I do this rarely enough that it isn't an issue but, could be so much better with only a small design change. The table mechanism is also crude. It might have been Bill Huber who rigged up a table raising mechanism for his. Given its price-point I have been very happy with this sander for a number of years. For double the money I paid are there better ones? Yes.

[Quinn McCarthy]

I have the same sander as Mike on page 2. Vega 6x139. When I bought it it was the only sander I coughd find with movable dust ports. I do a lot of 16' trim on it. The tables is massive too.

Hope that helps.

Quinn

[Cary Falk]

It might have been Bill Huber who rigged up a table raising mechanism for his. .

It was probably me.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ght=jet+sander

[Joe Cowan]

Just used it to square up some 7" wide boards. First thing I learned is the sandpaper wants to pull the board off the mitre gauge and off square. Once I got that figured out it worked well. I have always used a 12" disc sander, but it does not do so good on wider boards. I wonder how many edge sander owners use this for all their end grain sanding? I thought I might get rid of my disc sander as I am running out of room in my shop, but will not until I make sure I will not need it.

[Martin Wasner]

I've never used an edge sander where I was impressed with the dust collection. I think it's a pretty difficult operation to make super clean.

[Jesse Busenitz]

I have a Grizz that I modified to hook up a 6" pipe to, and it does a decent job of get the dust. I thought when I got it that I would use it in the horizontal position instead of vertical.... I think that's happened once. And yes it's very handy for end grain etc. I do wish there was a miter slot on the table though. That's one of the few things my 20" disc sander gets used for.

[Keith Weber]

Jesse,

Are you talking about an edge sander, or a combination sander? I'm not sure how a miter slot would be of much use on an edge sander. You need one on a disc sander so that you can stay perpendicular to the disc while moving left to right (to get a different speed or to utilize a clean part of the sandpaper.) An edge sander usually has a stop which is set at 90° to the belt travel. Moving left to right doesn't do anything constructive (unless your table is not level left to right.) You can just keep the board flush to the stop and feed it into the belt to get a square cut.

[Cary Falk]

[QUOTE=Keith Weber;2513932]Jesse,

I'm not sure how a miter slot would be of much use on an edge sander. QUOTE]

The jet has a miter gage that you can lock into the miter slot at any angle. Think of it as an adjustable angle stop.

[Keith Weber]

The jet has a miter gage that you can lock into the miter slot at any angle. Think of it as an adjustable angle stop.

Yeah, I see now that it has one, but I fail to see how it has any purpose whatsoever (other than to weaken the table). It's almost like the Asian copycats saw a slot like that on a shaper, and figured that they should put it on an edge sander as well -- without realizing that its functionality on the shaper does not transfer at all to the edge sander. The belt is moving left to right. What purpose would it serve to move your work piece left and right?

On my Oakley H6, it has a rigid stop on the right side of each side table. It is cast iron and held down by a single bolt, so it can be pivoted and locked down at whatever angle you want. It has the added benefit of not being able to go anywhere, so it doesn't have the potential to launch off the right side of the table like a floating miter. I'd love for somebody to explain to me how the Jet design engineer (aka Chief Copycat) doesn't deserve the tool design dunce of the year award. I see Shopfox did it as well. I'm not sure who copied who.

IMG_2333 copy.jpg

[David Kumm]

I replaced the stop on my Oakley with a JDS miter gauge and fence. Use it all the time. DaveDSCN2642.jpg

[Terry Hatfield]

Joe, the Jet looks like a nice machine. Congrats on the purchase. I'm sure you'll find tons of uses for it! Use my Grizzly G0512 all the time for wood, metal, plastic, whatever. Amazing how many uses I've found for it. The Grizzly does have a permanent stop on the right of the table. Great for end grain and squaring. I build inset doors for most of my projects and being able to fine tune the fit with the edge sander is super nice. The table wraps around the spindle end which is awesome for curved pieces. Very handy machine. I ran 6" to the 4" factory port. Does a pretty good job.

[Joe Cowan]

I think I will reverse the mitre gauge so that the fence is behind the board, thus helping to control the belt pulling the board away from the fence. In other words, put the fence in first, followed by the mitre bar, opposite of how it usually get installed in the mitre slot.

[Joe Cowan]

Fence in first did it. I doubt I will ever use my disc sander again.