I picked up the Laguna 16-32 drum sander and thought Id leave some comments on my experience after using it for a couple of days.
- It is almost identical to the Jet or Performax drum sander except that it comes with table extensions, the stand has wheels, it has a open end locking mechanism and the verticle adjust is a round knob and costs a lot less (I looked over the Performax at Rockler after getting mine.)
- Boxed it weighed about 175 lbs. I needed help to lift the head onto the stand during assembly.
- Easy to assemble but help needed due to weight.
- It has wheels on one end and handles on the other to lift and move the machine. I found that setup to be very awkward to use, but better then nothing.
- The Motor size is 1.5hp. The specs at the Laguna website say 1.0 hp.
- It does not come with shims to align the table, I ended up using washers under the two table attached bolts.
- The drum to table alignment was way off at first. I had to add shims to table and also move the drum adjustment.
- It comes with 80 grit paper installed.
- There is a cablibratable scale that indicated the drum height.
- The dust collection works very well and has a 4" port with pivoting right angle.
- I am making 1/8" to 3/16" thk x 4" x 19" red oak veneers for bent laminations to become chair stretchers and made 32 of them so far.
- These thicknesses are close to the min limit of the machine so I ran these through on 3/4" backer.
- The 80 grit was much too course and I bought some 150 grit Performax precut rolls from Rockler.
- Adding the paper was every easy.
- After running to set the first pass, each successive pass light pass would take about a 15 or 20 degree change of the handle to lower the drum for the next pass.
- I noticed if set too low or to take too much material, sometimes there was a little snipe, but with light passes I did not measure any thickness difference on the ends.
- If drum was set too low, or too much material being removed, the motor would bog down and soon blow the breaker on the motor which is right on top and easy to reach. WHen this happens the table motion does not lose power
- The height locking bracket was not something I used as I was always changing the height but its there if only one height is being used would not nice to lock in.
- The veneer/backers gripped very well to the moving belt, even when the drum was set too low and took too much material.
- The drum and belt are both on with no seperate power control.
- The results were great and dimensions very uniform when I measured with calipers.
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