Visitor Reviews

Click here to write an review and share your thoughts with other tool buyers.

Excellent and Well Constructed Drum Sander

Review by: Kahley

I purchased this sander locally about 4 months ago. I reviewed this column and many other review sites.I visited the local dealers to view the beige colored counter part. If possible I would suggest anyone to do the same. The delta construction is much beefier. I am extremly satisfied with my purchase. I paid $939.00 and no shipping. I am using the sandpaper supplied for my current project (converting rough sawn**air dried southern pine to make moulding, door jambs and baseboards for my log home). The machine is heavy and it took about 1 1**2 hours to set up out of the box. The only adjustments that I needed to make was the depth adjustment.I probably sanded only about a couple hundred board feet of planed stock with it. SYP has a lot of pitch in it so sandpaper gets clogged. All sandpaper gets clogged after about 50 bf with this type of wood. The drum sander is not a planer. Sanders are not made to dimension lumber. Sanders will clog your dust collector filter quicker than a planer. Planers dimension and possibly create tearout and drum sanders smooth out the light planer ripples and sand the wood to remove any light tearout. I joint my boards then face them in the planer then finish sand them in the drum sander and finally shape the edge on my shaper. You must do a final light sanding with an oscillating sander if you want to remove the sanding lines that a drum sander creates if you use less than 220 grit. You must have very good dust collection system (especially with finer grits). I have never torn any sanding belts and they take about 1 minute to install after the first 10 tries. I have built a stand from 2x4 lumber and casters and I soon will attach a sandpaper shelf on the metal base. I would not suggest purchasing another drum sander for under $7000.00. You must have a planer to remove saw marks on roughsawn lumber unless you plan un using pre-planed lumber. The belt will bog down if you attempt anything but medium sanding with a 8" wide(or wider) board with the type of wood that I am currently using. I am very happy with this machine.

Click here to see all visitor reviews of this tool.