Do you have a drum sander?

[Dave Monk]

What brand and model? How short of board can you sand?  Does it round the ends off a bit? Appreciate any input. Thanks

[Denny Knappen]

Hi Dave.  I have the Seyco Flex Drum Sander.  I use it for shaping intarsia pieces.  Some pieces are real small.

[Dave Monk]

10 minutes ago, Denny Knappen said:

Hi Dave.  I have the Seyco Flex Drum Sander.  I use it for shaping intarsia pieces.  Some pieces are real small.

Denny, Wondering about the type of drum sander with a conveyor.

[Terry Jay]

I have one at 24" opening, variable speed feed belt.  Does a great job, does not round the edges, and would be good down to maybe 2".  Dust control is a vacuum dust collector with 4" hose, so the controlling issue is the weight of the piece, and enough surface contact to stay put.  You can put a small piece in a nest of larger pieces as long as it won't get removed by the vacuum.  Sorry, can't remember the name, but well known for their thickness sanders.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Dave I have a Performax 16/32" open end drum sander. This means I can sand up to 32" of board because one side of sander is open. It has a 16" platform. I love this tool. It has a speed control for both the belt and for the platform which you can control. You can sand any wood you want no matter what size it is. Now there are tricks to sand small pieces as well as thin slices. You use what is called a carrier board. You use doublesided tape to hold piece down and I like to put a fence so the pressure of the wood is being applied to back of the wood up against the fence. Now this gets sanded down as the piece is so needs to maybe replaced now and then. I use rolls of sandpaper and cut my own lengths. saves money as opposed to precut lengths. You pay extra for that convience. The whole trick using a drum sander is to remember it is not a planer. It is a sander and very slight increments when sanding. Exotic woods can burn the paper if too big of a bite is taken. It has a 2" port on it and I hook it to my shop vac. I can hook to my dust collector but shop vac is just as easy because it will make a lot of dust and very easy to clean. Just need to keep filter cleared so many times I have to stop and clear filter if doing alot of boards. I could not do what I do without this sander. They have 24/48 or 12/24 models other companies Grizzly, shop fox, jet, powermatic and more. No it does not round corners  but you need carrier board if doing small pieces or they will get launched.  

Other factors when using a drum sander or any sander and all the woodworkers here of course know this you always sand the same amount of passes on both sides of a board. Same with planning.  Also when using a drum sander it is always good to run the board through twice for each pass. and you just flip it 180 degrees so that you know if there is any discrepancy in the drum not being level that the flipping will take it out.  MY opinion.  Good luck if you make a decision to buy one. I would stay away from Grizzly but again just MY opinion. 

Edited January 8, 2020 by JTTHECLOCKMAN

[Denny Knappen]

11 hours ago, Dave Monk said:

Denny, Wondering about the type of drum sander with a conveyor.

Sorry Dave.  I have aSand Flee that I use on almost every project.

[Davevand]

I have a Grizzly G0458 and it works OK but I would not buy it again.  A friend has a SuperMax 16/32 and it is a much better sander.

There should not be any round over on the edges.  For small pieces I just use double sided tape and tape them to a backer board to run them though the sander, never had any issues.

[Sycamore67]

I have a Supermax 16/32 and love it.  The website says you can go down to a 2-1/4" board.  I have not done that but have run 6" long boards thru it.  

There is a learning curve to them as to the grit of paper, how much you can take off and how fast.  Mine has a sensor which slows it down if you are trying to go to fast.  

You need a dust collector as they put out a lot of fine dust.  

[Jim Finn]

I had a Grizzly "baby drum sander"  12" wide for small items.  I found it to be very slow to sand to a preferred thickness so I started using 3/8" wood and run it through my thickness planer.  I finally trashed the drum sander because the conveyer motor died on me  twice.  I do not recommend that sander.

[tgiro]

SuperMax 16/32. It replaced a DW733 planer that got used every now and them because of noise and chips flying. The SuperMax is on wheels and can be rolled out of the way when I don't need it, but I find I'm using it almost every other day or so. 20 times quieter than a planer.

With a rough cut 4/4 board I use 36 grit for two or three passes on each side - then I drop to 80 for the rest of the "planing", and wind up with 150 or 180 for final sanding.

Be sure to have good dust collection for it.

BTW - every now & then, Woodcraft runs a sale on them for "Under a Thousand" -- $998.95

[Scrappile]

I know this is an older forum, but, a drum sander has been on my "most wanted, but can't afford" list for several years... I even have plans for building one, but not sure I have the talent to go with the plans.... Just the other day, I watched an YouTube video on making one using treadmill parts.... WOW,  I think that would be a much better use of a treadmill,  and it really looked neat.   Using the control thingy from the treadmill was really neat.  Angles could be raised and lowered, speed adjusted,,,,, lots to neat stuff... wish I had the talent....  I have the tread mill my wife just had to have,,,, but has NEVER, stepped a foot on.... But if I mention getting rid of it,,,, that foot sets hard on me....!

Edited March 15, 2020 by Scrappile

[amazingkevin]

I use drill press operated drum sanders besides a dremil drum sander .