Why are Drum / Widebelt sanders so Expensive?

[tod evans]

lee, several years ago i had a woodmaster drum sander, it was a pretty simple design, a drum ridding in pillow blocks with a pulley attached powered by a 5hp baldor motor, a sheet metal frame with a formed dust pick-up, the conveyor was an inexpensive 1/8" rubber belt powered by a d/c servo motor maybe 1/4 hp? adjusted by acme screws at each corner connected by what appeared to be bicycle chain adjusted by a hand crank..if a fellow starts adding up the cost of the componants for a machine of this simple of a design he will be surprised! then take the time to assemble one and see if there really is a cost savings? widebelts are a whole nother animal all together.........hope this is food for thought? tod

[Brad Olson]

I'm willing to accept arguments based on economics/volume, but talking like designing and manufacturing the sander is a more expensive proposition than other machines of very similar functionality just doesn't make sense to me.

The drums are expensive to make because they have to be milled, polished and balanced. IIRC a good amount of the cost of the machine is wrapped up in the drums and dribe mechanism. The cost goes up because they make the parts on low volume and each machine has their own drum design.

[lou sansone]

Ok lee
I will try this another way... My 24" itailan planer and my 37" timesavers widebelt basically cost the same. They are both of equal quality as far as I can see. I have rebuilt both of them myself so I do have some idea about what is in each one. New they were both on the order of $18,000.00 each. I don't know if this will satisfy your cuiosity or not.

If you are trying to figure out why you can buy a $ 350 lunch box planer and why you can't buy a $ 350 lunch box sander then that is another story. I think with the lunch box planer the function is one where the low technology and high volume seems to be a good combination. Even in that price point space the sanders are more expensive because of the added conveyor mechanism.
But....
Bottom line is large heavy industrial machines are expensive. Even with machines made by the Taiwian firms where the profit margin is not all that big, the larger widebelts and industrial duty planers are of similar costs.

Let me turn the question around to you and ask if you have some thoughts on the question you posed.

regards
lou

[Lee DeRaud]

The drums are expensive to make because they have to be milled, polished and balanced.

I get that. But are you saying the cutterhead in a planer doesn't have to be "milled, polished, and balanced"? I can see maybe skipping the polishing step, but not the other two, and you have the extra machining steps for the blade grooves and the complication of the blade positioning and/or adjustment widgets.

Sounds like the real answer is simple volume economics: if enough of you people buy the expensive sanders, eventually the price will come down to where I think it should be.

[Lee DeRaud]

If you are trying to figure out why you can buy a $350 lunch box planer and why you can't buy a $350 lunch box sander then that is another story. I think with the lunch box planer the function is one where the low technology and high volume seems to be a good combination. Even in that price point space the sanders are more expensive because of the added conveyor mechanism.

Ok, I'll bite: what "added" conveyor mechanism? They have a different conveyor mechanism, which certainly may be more expensive to produce than the feed rollers in the lunchbox planer...do they need it? Is there any fundamental reason a planer-style feed roller mechanism couldn't be used in place of the belt?

Another question: several people on this thread have made the same implication you did above, that the planer is in some way "lower tech" than the sander. What's the basis for that?

[Ian Barley]

The way I see it this is all economics and elasticity of demand.

The planer, even a small lunchbox planer, effectively does a job (thicknessing solid timber) that requires considerable skill and effort to achieve with hand tools or even powered hand tools. I know that the cavemen do it with a hand plane but they spend more time and brain cycles than us electron junkies.

The sander, even a wide belt sander, does a job which can be achieved relatively easily to a similar enough standard with basic powered hand tools (ROS etc.) I know that it takes longer but the results obtained are similar and the skill level is not excessive.

So - if you have a 100 woodworkers who need to change the thickness of the stock that they are working 80+ of them are likely to be realistic customers for a planer because they don't have the patience or the skill level to apply the alternative.

Now those same 100 woodworkers have to put a sanded finish on those boards that they have just thicknessed. Even if the price of the sander and the planer were identical a much lower proportion of the group would purchase because they have a lower priced substitute capable of achieving the same result with relatively low skill and effort commitment - a $50 ROS. And they probably do already have the ROS because they will have purchased that before they get to the level of sophistication of changing the thickness of stock. Lets say that a reasonably generous 20 of the group feel that their time is important enough to make the purchase of a sander.

So now we have to look from the manufacturers side. He has to set up a prodyction process for both machines - an assmebly line if you like. If both lines cost exactly the same to set up and have the same fixed costs the manufacturer has to recover those fixed costs on the sander at 4 times the rate that he does on the planer if both items are to be equally profitable. To keep the maths simple lets say the lines each cost 10,000 dollars a year in amortised capital and fixed running costs. Each one of the 80 planers sold has to recover $125 in fixed costs. Each one of the sanders sold has to recover $500 in fixed costs. Exactly the same ratios apply to design costs, initial testing costs etc....

The drum or wide belt sander is a more marginal purchase for the averag woodworker. If the manufacturers saw that everybody who bought a lunchbox planer for $350 was also a very likely customer for a $350 lunchbox sander then I suspect that the engineering problems would start to evaporate - but the manufacturers - and me - probably think that is unlikely.

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Were my eyes playing tricks on me or did I not see a "lunchbox" drum sander in the newest issue of Wood from Grizzley?? Seems to me it was listed at under $400...

Doug

[Lee DeRaud]

Were my eyes playing tricks on me or did I not see a "lunchbox" drum sander in the newest issue of Wood from Grizzley?? Seems to me it was listed at under $400...

Haven't got that issue yet, but there's no such animal on Grizzly's website. Article or ad?

[Brad Olson]

Haven't got that issue yet, but there's no such animal on Grizzly's website. Article or ad?

Coming soon (January?).

[lou sansone]

Ok, I'll bite: what "added" conveyor mechanism? They have a different conveyor mechanism, which certainly may be more expensive to produce than the feed rollers in the lunchbox planer...do they need it? Is there any fundamental reason a planer-style feed roller mechanism couldn't be used in place of the belt?

Another question: several people on this thread have made the same implication you did above, that the planer is in some way "lower tech" than the sander. What's the basis for that?

ok no problem with the explanation on my part.
With many planers, although not all, the infeed and outfeed is acomplished by gearing together the cutter head and the two infeed and outfeed rollers. If for the moment you will allow the idea of a conveyor belt feeding the stock into the "sanding machine" you will see that power must be transmitted to the lower "conveyor bed rollers". Although you might be able to come up with a mechanical powertrain that could do this, I think what you will find is that it is far simpler to have "another motor" to do that job. And in fact evey widebelt sander I have ever seen has exactly that, another motor. That extra motor cost more $$. In addition for sanding operations the feed speed is almost always variable to account for the variety of surfaces and the different types of grit. So not only do you have another motor, but you need one with pretty decent gear reduction ( gear box) and also so way of varying the speed ( reeves drive or dc or VFD ). Now you have even more money tied up in the machine than that original planer we were talking about.

But..... if you have read this far you have been thinking all along.. hmmmm lou is sort of dense because he has forgotten all about my suggestion of simply using the feed roller on the planer. Not at all and I think that is what woodmaster does with their combo sander / planer. There are going to have to be some serious compromises if you go this route. It is not to say it wont work, but you will end up with a marginal machine IMHO. So lets explore your suggestion that one use the feed roller on the planer to push the board through. A couple of things come to mind. First is that most decent planers have serrated infeed rollers that would basically ruin the piece you are trying to sand. But some have a urethane roller instead of the serrated roller and that would not damage the wood surface. True, some do, but in that case those machines are more costly than the standard planers and you are still more expensive than the off the shelf planer. Furthermore, you still have the need for a variable speed feed on that upper roller and all the extra money you need to spend on that power train. BTW I agree that quanity has something to do with price. The other thing that is comming to mind is the deflection of the stock under the sanding pressure and the normal feed rollers on planers. Most planer I have seen has feed rollers, although some very good ones have managed to omit them ( take for example the felder series of planers ... I would add that if you are thinking of felder you can't be thinking of machines that cost 350 dollars ).

So rather than start to look like posts that Dev makes .. I will lay down my pen and say. that is all folks. but it is fun to think outside the box and I believe that was your intent lee

who knows maybe you will invent a real inexpensive sanding machine someday

regards
lou

[Lee DeRaud]

... I would add that if you are thinking of felder you can't be thinking of machines that cost 350 dollars.

Well, no...that's just a bit out of my range. (Note to self: buy lottery tickets.)

I'd be tickled pink if there was a machine that works as good as a sander as my Delta lunchbox planer works as a planer, at a similar price and footprint. Ian made the point that perhaps the market is much smaller for the sander...then again, there are a bunch of people buying 14" bandsaws with riser kits and resaw-capable blades, which makes it appear that the market for a "lunchbox sander" is there at some level.

So rather than start to look like posts that Dev makes .. I will lay down my pen and say. that is all folks. but it is fun to think outside the box and I believe that was your intent lee

Absolutely. I'd hate to think somebody at Jet/Performax/Delta/whoever vetoed the production of a "lunchbox sander" just because it doesn't look/work like a miniature version of their full-size sander. Maybe it'll have to be somebody that doesn't already have a "conventional" sander in their catalog.

[Mike Deschler]

Brad hit it pretty closely as to number of units sold. When you consider the developmental and the tooling costs plus limited manufacturing volumes you can see where the unit price for a good drum sander would be expensive. I am sure that if the major manufacturers had greater volumes, the selling price would be considerably less. They may be expensive but really are worth it in the long run. I picked up a used 16/32 for slightly more than 50% of the current selling price recently and feel real good about the deal.

[Steve Rowe]

The cutterheads on the small planers are so small that I'd bet you'd get a lot of burning on the paper. The paper would heat up quickly because of the friction and wouldn't be able to dissipate the heat. That's one of the advantages of the 15" open-end widebelt sanders over a drum sander - the sanding belt has much more time to cool off as it passes through the machine.

Several years ago, I had a Foley Belsaw planer/molder/sander. This planer could be converted to a sander by inserting pads with velcro type backing across the 3 arcs between the knife slots. From what I recall, the diameter of the cutterhead was between 2 to 2-1/2 inches (much smaller than that seen on drum sanders). What Bob describes is exactly what happened on this setup. The function of this machine as a thickness sander was extremely poor and the paper did not last long at all.