Steel City Drum Sander - Feedback?

[Mike Mortenson]

Does anyone have a Steel City 26" Drum sander. I would love to hear your comments. It looks like a good unit but I was a bit concerned that it only has a 3 hp motor where several other companies are using 5hp. Also would like to know your opinions on how it works.

[Bob Aquino]

Is that the one that looks like the General International version? I looked at the GI version at woodcraft last weekend, looked very nice. I am thinking about getting a drum sander, though I am leaning toward the performax 22/44. There is also a machine under the name Accura being sold on ebay that looks similar. Cost wise it looks to be between 15-1600 which isnt bad but is more expensive than the performax but is way cheaper then the powermatic 25' dual drum. Would be interested in hearing opinions on any of the larger drum sanders myself.

[John Clapp]

I'm also interested in hearing from anyone with the steel city dual drum... just saw one in person this afternoon at a Woodcraft store and it looked pretty sweet. It's got a smaller footprint than I was expecting, but looks plenty beefy enough. Looks very well made and looks like it would do the job. It's almost half the cost of the Powermatic (and others like it).

There was a Steel City rep there at the store at the time and I talked to him about it (keeping in mind that he would be slightly biased towards his product). However, he was very honest and admitted that the Steel City probably isn't "quite" the machine the Powermatic is... but then again it's over $1,000 less than the PM, a little less horsepower, etc.

Personally, I would rather save a grand and have a nice dual drum sander (assuming it's worth a poop). But then again if I had the money I'd be looking at Timesaver or something in that neighborhood.

Anyone out there have personal experience with the Steel City? If so and the report is good... I'm going back soon for that bad boy!

[Mike Cutler]

Mike

I have the Steel City 26" drum sander and couldn't be more pleased with it.


Here is an edited copy of a PM I wrote on the sander.

The Steel City Drum Sander is very well made. I was fairly impressed with the finish of the sander and the material.
Out of the box the only thing I had to do was put the crank handle on, bolt the power switch in place and make a 220vac extension cord, and the sander was ready to go.
It comes with an 80grit and a 120 grit sandpaper already installed. It took less than an hour to get it up and running once I got it off the pallet.
I ran 4, 18' wide by 5 feet long jatoba glueps through it the first day to check the drums parallel to the feed platten, and they were perfect. I then ran some 12" wide, 2" thick, 9' long padauk boards through it to see if there would be problems with snipe, and could the pressure rollers hold a larger heavier piece of material. I did get some snipe at the trailing end, but I had no feed rollers or outfeed support. I fed it and controlled it by hand
In 10 minutes the sander did what my Perfomax 16-32 sander would have needed at least an hour or two to accomplish on those jatoba glueups.
It doesn't preclude the need for final finish sanding though. You'll still need to do a finish sand by hand, or ROS. I haven't experimented with grits finer than the 120 it came with, so possibly on some woods it could have a finer grit installed and preclude the final finish sanding step.

Dust collection is an issue for me with this sander. I still only have a Jet DC1100 dust collector, and it's not big enough.
What happens is that some dust is not completely removed and falls back onto the material in between the first drum and the second drum. The dust also falls into the feed roller belt and builds up. This requires me to have to keep sweeping it off the material and the belt as the wood is exiting the machine. the second drum also "resands" some of this dust and helps lead to burning with the more oily woods.
For smaller width boards, say 12" or less, what I do is connect one DC hose and block the other DC port pickup and run the material centered directly under the DC port that is connected to the dust collector. It works pretty well actually. But I know that I need either a bigger DC, or a second DC to fully utilize the width of the drum sander. I use the sander in the garage, so the amount of space and free air flow may not allow me to see how much dust I'm not getting, as would be the case in a smaller enclosed shop.


This machine is very heavy! and there are no rigging points on the machine to lift it off the pallet. There are also no handholds to grab onto.
I had to create a basket sling around the machine and use a 1/2 ton chain hoist to get it off the pallet,and onto a mobile base.I didn't feel too comfortable lifting it by either the top, where all the drum roller mechanisms are, or the feed table because I was afraid of damaging the table assembly. The manual also had no instructions concerning getting it off the pallet, or identify lift points to be used that wouldn't damage the machine.
Be sure and have some help getting it off the pallet. If you are going to place it on a mobile base. You will need to purchase a mobile base that can fit a 19"x 43" base. I used the General International 500lb mobile base, but I would recommend getting one of the heavier duty HTC mobile bases.

I would not hesitate one bit recommending this sander. Mine has been a huge timesaver for me.

[John Clapp]

Mike C. - Thanks again for the detailed report!

[Bob Roberts]

Is there any benefit to an "enclosed" sander over the "open end" Performax type sanders.

[Mike Cutler]

Is there any benefit to an "enclosed" sander over the "open end" Performax type sanders.

Bob

The primary advantage, in my opinion, and other than size, is the increased rigidity of the drum rolls. Speed is a big advantage also, as I wrote in my previous post
I have a Performax 16-32 open ended sander. If I try to take too much off, or have particuraly hard dense material, the open end of the sander deflects upward a very minute amount. This always required me to to have to do multiple passes without changing the drum height, and rotating the board 180 degrees, on the same face and sending it through again.
To be fair to the Performax, it just wasn't the right sander for me. I tend to work on bigger projects with primarily dense tropical hardwoods( Long, wide and thick stuff). On smaller/lighter material, and sanding thin veneers or material for laminations, the Performax excels.

[Ray Hickey]

Been usuing the Performax open end for some 6 years and I will say its just OK. Have a lot of trouble keeping the sanding belts from overlaping. The belt holding clasp are just too hard to get too. Now the drum is a little out of level and it shakes. Simply put ..it is getting old. Just like most of us.... I,ve been looking at Grizzly's 18" open end where the drum is fixed and the table moves up and down. The drum must be more rigid this way. The price is about the same....Any comments.

[Bob Roberts]

I have had neither type but really believe that the open end type would have some flex to it. Therefore, I am leaning towards the 26" Steel City model.