Wide belt sanders are all the rage but are they all they are cracked up to be? Well first let me say that a wide belt with multiple belts and selectable drum versus platen with 50 HP, etc. is a hard show to follow. They are also insanely expensive with price tags upwards of $50,000 dollars. So for most of us, this isnt even an option or consideration.

So what out there in wide belt land that will work? Well, we can get a 24 in to 37 in single belt, wide belt sander. Lou found a nice 37 in Timesaver. But is no spring chicken. It uses a pnuematic air powered system to maintain belt alignment. New ones use electric eyes and servo control. How its done does not really matter. I kinda prefer the air powered system as its novel and easy to repair. Some servo parts may be integrated electrics which can be a bear to repair.

Now some of these widebelts have 6 inch drums while others have 12 inch drums while still others use a full platten design. Which one is better? That is hard to say. For super fine, (read paper thin) veneer, the platten styles are the way to go. For other applications, you may be better off with a drum. The 12 inch drum seems to be a nice compromise but hard as heck to come by. Also these belts are are expensive.

Sanders need a bunch of power. Lou has a 20 HP motor on his 27 inch Timesaver and this is not uncommon. Wide surface sanding takes the juice and that is why many of these sanders have onboard amp meters!

An alternative to the widebelt is the industrial twin drum drum sander. Now most of the two drum drum sanders have the drums working together. In the case of the blue oliver, the drums actually oscillate back and forth which is pretty cool but not as novel as it sounds. More on this later. But I can lift the aft drum and use the front drum only or I can use both drums. The idea is that you have low grit paper on the first drum and finer finish grit on the last drum. To me this is an oxymoron. If I am going to feed a board through one of these two or three or more times, why must I undo the finish work of the previous pass with the roughiean work of the low grit drum on each successive pass through the machine?

In looking at antique machines like the 10,000 pound Royal Invincible three drum sander made by Berlin at the turn of the century, I found that each drum had its own monster motor and that each drum was independently selectable. So not only could I select which drum to turn on, I could also select that drum by itself or I could select any combination of the three drums. Many modern multi drum sanders dont appear to have this ability.

Then the only modern drum sander that actually oscillates its drums is the new blue oliver. Most simply rotate the drum. The oliver has counter oscillating and revolving drums. Again this is not new. Most of the antique drum sanders actually had this feature. The berlin invincible had ossilating drums as did the beach drum sanders. The beach is much smaller than the berlin and it only weighs about 4000 pounds.

Regardless both are large and consume a large footprint of shop space. The berlin had three 5 HP motors with a direct drive scheme. The beach machines I have seen often had a 7.5 HP motor on the first drum with a 5 HP motor on the aft drum. Then these machines had a planer like feed system. That is, a cast iron type table with what appears to be integral feed rollers. The feed motor was often in the range of about 3 to 5 HP.

Modern sanders use rubber conveyor belts. You see this on both the wide belt sanders as well as the drum sanders like those made by Timesaver as well as performex and grizzly. I have not had a peek under the hood here but I believe you will most likely find that these have some form of support platten under there. You also have the mushy characteristics of the belt itself. As the drum begins to dig into the thiner stock being run through there, it strikes me as possible that this process can flex the stock and result in less than perfect flat surface at the other end. Resawn veneer 1/4 in or thinner can truely move and there seems to be plenty of opportunity for this movment in modern feed systems used today. Older machines like the Beach will not have this issue as they are more planer than modern sander.

Then you have the issue with the drum. As many have point out, it is quite possible for you burn your paper and wood if your not removing heat from the process. Small drum sanders with poor thermal chacteristics can do this. But given a wide belt sander with a 6 inch drum and a pure drum sander with a 6 inch drum, which machine will produce a better result? Assuming of course you can remove excess heat as needed?

The thing to consider is this. The drums on older beach sanders can weigh more than your whole unisaw! They are masive logs of steel and can remove heat from the process. I have to believe that the only redeeming feature of the extra complexity of a single belt, 6 inch drum based wide belt sander is its ability to run cool under continous full loading. But one look at an older beach, and I have to wonder how one can overheat one of these old beasties with those massive steel drums.

So after doing a bunch of research into this topic, I find that I have the same question remaining unanswered. Which is better? A wide belt sander or a good drum sander? This is one of the few machines I dont own because I have found these issues to be complex and far from straight forward. David Marks uses a performex sander and Lou uses a wide belt sander. Sorry about picking on you Lou. Each is accomplished and each is quite well grounded in the theory of woodworking machines. Two different woodworkers and two different sander solutions.

Now some say that a wide sander is needed for figured grain. If I resaw a figured veneer and laminate it onto a substrate such as baltic birch, then why can I not use a byrd head set to a kissing cut? Likewise, if I resaw lumber into strips for a bent strip lamination project, most of these strips will never exceed 6 or 8 or so inches. Who could concieve of a bent strip lamination project in which the lamina are say 20 or 25 inches or so in width? I would hate to see those forms! So why use a wide belt sander on narrow strips?

So I have to say that this problem is really a paradox. The sander paradox. And if anyone is planing on building a home made sander, some of these issues need to be considered. A problem where a small amount of chaous influence up front can yield a multitude of varying solutions at the end. The sander paradox.