Sander discussion

D1PP1N

Anyone havery a drum sander they like?

 I went to buy a used one today I bought on ebay. The guy had a week and a half to get it working before pickup and I went today to check it out and it had a bunch of problems. The motor wasnt powering on for the drum. We fixed that. Then the table wasn't raising or lowering and we disassembled it and tried to fix that a few gears were toast so the crank would not work. After breaking it down it had a good amount of rust on it so I decided to pass on it. At $450 if it worked it wasn't too bad of a price. 

I have a few projects coming up that could use the aid of a drum sander. My dad wants an island and I need to build a few cabinets. I have a friend that wants some wine and cheese trays too. I don't want to spend $1400 on a new one though that's for sure. 

I have a planer 13" delta I've been using for most stuff but once it's glued up most things don't fit width wise. 

Any advise or suggestions on good sanders or options?

jr@mac

I'm not in the know wrt drum Sanders - but I love a good tool discussion.

greywarden

Maybe diy? You'll probably put $400-500 into it, but you can make it as big as you need.

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/viewer-projects/homemade-36-drum-sander/

D1PP1N

Man that would take alot of time to make. I'm not sure it would be better to diy it vs working overtime. If I work 2 Saturdays I can pay the difference and get the new one. I'm thinking that diy job will be atleast 40-80 hours so labor getting running. 

greywarden

You make $500 on saturdays? Which strip club?

Face

Sounds

greywarden said:

You make $500 on saturdays? Which strip club?

My math says he makes about $250 per Saturday, which isn't bad either.

D1PP1N

Yeh, $390 for 8 hours Saturday and approx. $500 for 8hrs on Sunday. 1.5x(Saturday and anything goes over 40hrs) and 2.0x (sunday)for overtime. That assumes the 6% shift premium for working nights. 

We lost an awesome pension but got a pay increase at the last contract. It doubled our responsibilities so really it wasn't worth the trade off. Kind of odd to have a union with shared work agreements with other locals. Never have I saw such a thing atleast here in Chicago. 

mattsk8

I vote Festool RO-150 over a drum sander (since I know you already have a planer)... but you'll also want a dust collector with it; they sand ferociously, so they definitely spit out some dust. With dust collection it's almost zero.

The RO-150 is awesome, start to finish sanding, and with a hard pad you can get razor sharp edges. 

jhollander

Few ideas...For me if it doesn't fit in the planer I start thinking veneer.  I did a solid 42 x 48 sapele coffee table and my go to tools after glue up were a low angle block plane and a Stanley 80 scraper plane.  I finished that off with a 1/3 sheet hand sander.

The hand planes can get addictive.

mattsk8

jhollander said:

Few ideas...For me if it doesn't fit in the planer I start thinking veneer.  I did a solid 42 x 48 sapele coffee table and my go to tools after glue up were a low angle block plane and a Stanley 80 scraper plane.  I finished that off with a 1/3 sheet hand sander.

The hand planes can get addictive.

I don't understand what you mean when you said "if it doesn't fit in the planer you start thinking veneer". I thought I understood it, but then you said you made a solid 42x48 sapele table... and I know that doesn't fit in a planer.

I did a 40 x 60 walnut table top for a friend not too long ago. We got some (heavy cut) 4/4 rough sawn walnut and I planed it to about 7/8". Then I biscuit joined the planks together... and the next part is where the Festool really shines. With everything joined together (and after I used the track saw to square all the ends and sides), I then start heavy sanding the table top with 80 grit using the hard pad on the sander. After that I heavy sand with 150, then switch the sander to finish mode and sand some more with 150. Then I sand with 220 in finish mode, then finish it with 320. Table top was absolutely beautiful and smooth as a baby's bottom. And in addition to that, there was no dust.

I can see where hand planes would be addictive... but it seems like smoothing an entire table top would take a lot of unnecessary time when you could just sand it. (This is also assuming you don't have any crazy edges to knock down where the boards were all joined together.) But... I don't have any experience with hand planes, so I'd love to know if I'm missing something . I'd like to get some hand planes for doing edge details, like round overs and whatnot. A lot less likely to ruin your workpiece with hand planes than with a router.

And based on that... since I know Mike already has a 16" planer... IMO, he'd get more use out of having a RO-150 sander with a dust collector that he would from a drum sander. My $0.02, FWIW.

R-Carpenter

if anyone is going to DIY a drum sander, it should be a wide belt sender not just drum. Drum sanders suck. The use of the sandpaper is cut short because of generated heat. None of the pro woodworkers I know were happy with the drum sanders and ended up selling them. IIt's a lot of tinkering to get them to work correctly.

Face

Wide belt sanders are very handy when working with large pieces.  A friend of mine has one, what he did in 15 minutes, would take an hour or more with a electric hand sander.

D1PP1N

So you saying use something like this?http://www.grizzly.com/products/Combination-Sander-6-x-48-Belt-12-Disc-3450-RPM/G1183?utm_campaign=zPage

OR a large wide one like this http://www.grizzly.com/products/Edge-Sander-w-Wrap-Around-Table/G0512?utm_campaign=zPage 

This seems like a good idea for a flat top one. 
http://www.stumpynubs.com/drum-sander.html 

Face

This, but obviously cheaper.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/37-Wide-Belt-Sander/G0539?utm_campaign=zPage

D1PP1N

I watched a few reviews on the Festool RO150 sander that thing is really bad ass. I have a ridgid 5" sander it has decent power but I can easily stop it from spinning. As crazy as the price is, Its something that's on my wish list for sure.

jhollander

For big pieces of furniture I try to see if I can veneer.  Some times the boss isn't interested.  Usually it's what the edge looks like.  Some time I find enough decent wood where if can do solid wood.  That's how the coffee table came to be.

The hand planes just seem to be faster to a flatter surface, but then  I've not used the Festool.