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Opinions on drum sanding machines

Started by shinnlinger, May 25, 2014, 08:39:10 AM

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shinnlinger

Hello,

Yesterday I stopped at a friend of my mothers and her husband, knowing I'm the local  woodshop teacher, said he had some stuff In The garage I might be interested in.
One is a dual drum grizzly 24"   
How aggressive can these be?   Can it make the boards off my band saw mill pretty without burning out?  It sounds like I can set two separate grit papers and  It can be mine for $300

Last night, I was at a friend of my wife's for dinner.  her husband, knowing, I'm the local  woodshop teacher, said he had some stuff In The garage I might be interested in. He has a performax 10-20  which is now in my car for me to try.  I could trade him some chicken for it. 

I have two specific projects in mind.   Taking air dried white pine from my mill and butting together for my second floor.   I did this on my first floor and sanded in place.   This turned out very well, but if I can send it through a sander first it might save me inside dust and make life easier, but am I expecting too much?

The second project is trim boards which have already been planed.  I assume the 10-20 can handle this with ease but any wisdom on this machine would be appreciated.

Dave
Shinnlinger
Woodshop teacher, pasture raised chicken farmer
34 horse kubota L-2850, Turner Band Mill, '84 F-600,
living in self-built/milled timberframe home

Hilltop366

I have a king double drum sander that I used for cleaning up glue ups like cabinet doors and draw fronts, it will clean and level out the wood well. If rough sawn skimming through a planer first would be better.

Heavy sanding and pine (no doubt other softwoods as well) tend to clog up the sandpaper quick and if the pitch and dust get heated on the paper a crepe block will not clean it off giving the sand paper a very short life.

Cleaning up reclaimed wood could be a good use for drum sanders as well as sand paper is way cheaper than planer blades.

Both sound like a good deal.

Larry

I had the 24" Grizzly until a few months ago.  I didn't like it at all.  One mistake and I would have a burnt spot on the paper which necessitated a paper change.  Paper changes were difficult, time consuming, and expensive.  The platen was some kind of mdf which is certainly not quality construction.  The whole machine was typical cheap Chinese junk, that occupies too much real estate in a small shop.

I see them on craigslist quite frequently in the $600 to $1,000 range.  Its odd they show up so often...after my experience I wouldn't have one if somebody gave it to me.

I can do a better faster job with my Bosch ROS.  My Dynabrade ROS is even better.
Larry, making useful and beautiful things out of the most environmental friendly material on the planet.

We need to insure our customers understand the importance of our craft.

jueston

i have the performax 16-32(now the jet 16-32)

i am yet to use it for anything larger then 16, but i've been completely satisfied with it. you have to have patience, a lot of patience.... with a large piece i only take off around 1/128 in a pass.

the new machines have some kind of electronics that prevent you from blowing a circuit by reducing the speed when it gets bogged down, mine does not have that. and if you blow a circuit while something is inside the machine you might as well go look at some new projects while you wait for it to spin down, because that piece of wood is completely destroyed.... i only did it once, now i take off as little as possible because i don't want to bog down the machine...

i would not recommend this machine for planing, i would plane your wood and then use this sander if you wanted a sanded surface, but i think for flooring you'll still need to sand it on the floor.

what i love most about the machine is that i can use it on tiny pieces of wood..... i acquired a bunch of chunks of exotic woods that were only about 4 inches long and very rough, if i put those in the planer they would have shot out of the machine like a bullet, but the sander it goes right through....

the other thing it can do which a planer can not(or should not) is go across grain. like a cabinet door, or a small box, it can sand with the grain on the sides and against the grain on the ends and it comes out nice and smooth...

the complaint everyone has is that changing the paper is annoying, and it is.... but you just have to accept that from the beginning, and have a few extra rolls of paper for when you install it wrong and destroy it....

shinnlinger

I set up the 10-20 in the shop the other day.  I could see where it is nice to be able to put a board in, go get a cup of coffeee and then come back to a sanded  4ft board but I think a DA sander would be WAY faster. 
I may take a board up to the grizzly guy and see if I can run it through and see what happens but it doesnt seem like either of these units are designed for what I need to do.
Shinnlinger
Woodshop teacher, pasture raised chicken farmer
34 horse kubota L-2850, Turner Band Mill, '84 F-600,
living in self-built/milled timberframe home

Hilltop366

I used my drum sander yesterday it did a great job for what I want it for which is cleaning up glue ups for draw fronts and cabinet doors, I do not expect a finished sanding job from the drum sander therefore I don't use a very fine grit paper. It is not really a tool that I use often but I do find mine faster than a da sander for the first sanding and a lot easier to get things flat. I make the doors a bit thicker, wider and longer (just the frame not the panel) then after glued up I drum sand  them then trim to size then finish sand.

Here is a birch door made on a table saw that I ran through the sander yesterday.

Kind of hard to tell in the picture but there is some unevenness in the joint as well as some grain tear out
from the planer. In the second pic the door is flat and the tear out is gone with two trips per side through the sander in a few minutes.(this is the back of the door)



  

 

21incher

I have a kuster 24" single drum sander built from a kit with a 5 hp motor. I can put 40 grit paper on it and it can get pretty aggressive, but will burn up a drive belt in no time if you try to take too much off at once. If there is pitch in the pine it will plug the paper real quick, and be prepared to collect a lot of fine dust. I usually just use it to remove planer marks and flatten large panels because the paper rolls can get quite expensive.
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

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