2 Desktop Planer questions

[Brian Kent]

My Delta drum sander has served me well, especially since I got it 14 years ago for $150. But alas, the gears are stripped that raise and lower the table.

I am thinking of getting rid of it and buying a Desktop Planer instead. My most frequent use of a drum sander or a planer is preparing wood for glue-ups for laminated turnings. I have 2 questions:

1. Will a decent planer give a good enough surface for gluing?

2. I am looking at the Dewalt DW735 and the Oliver Byrd Shelix Desktop Planer. The Dewalt seems to be the go-to favorite. Has anyone tried the Oliver? (The Oliver is $999. The Dewalt is $749 with infeed and outfeed tables, and I would not be upgrading to spiral cutters.)

Thank you.

[Jim Morgan]

Recently, I have mostly been doing segmented turning. I find that my planer (DW735) and drum sander play complementary roles. The planer excels at stock preparation, leaving a very good surface (much better than the 80x that I run on the sander) that is fine for gluing.

However, the planer has some limitations. First, it won't go under ⅛", so it is of limited usefulness in preparing thin laminates. It's always possible to double-stick tape stock to a carrier board and plane it as thin as you like, but getting the stock off the tape can be challenging.

Second, planers work with the grain - working cross-grain or on end-grain can be done with suitable precautions (e.g., using a backer to minimize chip-out at the trailing edge), but surface quality will suffer. For preliminary facing of glued-up rings, I would not consider using a planer.

[Edward Weber]

Recently, I have mostly been doing segmented turning. I find that my planer (DW735) and drum sander play complementary roles. The planer excels at stock preparation, leaving a very good surface (much better than the 80x that I run on the sander) that is fine for gluing.

However, the planer has some limitations. First, it won't go under ⅛", so it is of limited usefulness in preparing thin laminates. It's always possible to double-stick tape stock to a carrier board and plane it as thin as you like, but getting the stock off the tape can be challenging.

Second, planers work with the grain - working cross-grain or on end-grain can be done with suitable precautions (e.g., using a backer to minimize chip-out at the trailing edge), but surface quality will suffer. For preliminary facing of glued-up rings, I would not consider using a planer.

+1
The grain dependency is a big drawback for a "planer-only" approach.
For segmenting, a bandsaw and a drum sander would be a better fit. You can typically fit shorter and thinner pieces through a drum sander than a planer, without the need of a sled. With a sled, any thickness can be achieved in any diirection.

[Tim Elett]

I would repair the drumsander if at all possible, and purchase a new planer.

[Brian Kent]

I am re-thinking that. It seems to be jammed to a halt instead of slipping, so I can try a deep clean if I figure out how to get inside.

[Tim Elett]

My reason for saying that, I recently acquired a drumsander (used) but I'm finding it is a good thing for sanding rings after glue ups, something I was afraid to run threw a planer.

[Robert Hayward]

I'm finding it is a good thing for sanding rings after glue ups

Flattening rings was the reason I bought a drum sander a few years ago. I have found it useful for many other projects though.

[Steve Demuth]

If the gears are indeed stripped, and that's your primary problem, that's fixable. You won't find the gears as Delta parts (you wont' find anything from Delta for that sander, to be honest), but you can purchase stock bevel gears of the right pitch and tooth count, and fit them to the two shafts. But I'd first be sure the gears are really shot - if things are jammed up, it could be that the table has come out of adjustment and is no longer level, due to the cog belt slipping, or the raising shafts coming loose. That'll jam things up tight on that sander.

If you need the gears, you're looking for Boston Gear parts, GP1632Y miter gears. That's a 16 pitch, 32 tooth, 45o miter gear with 1/2" bore. You need to drill the stock gears for the mounting screws / keys, but this is easily done if you you've got a drill press. There's a youtube video in which a guy goes through the whole teardown, rebuild process for the gears. I haven't watched the video, but I could easily have made one myself :-(.

That said, if you're using the sander for flattening segmented glue-ups, you don't want to replace it with a planer. Planers are great for preparing stock from which to make the segments, but they'll eat your glued up rings and spit them back out out at you at velocity more often than you care to deal with. Drum sanders excel at flattening segment rings (as you obviously know). So do flat disc sanders, if you have one big enough, although these take a bit more skill to get uniform thickness.