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I went and did it this week - made up my mind and bought a drum sander. Got the Jet/Performax 16-32 from the local Woodcraft.

Today was set-up day. The drum was way out of parallel to start with, and I had to do the routine of loosening the bolts that hold the drum support assembly and use the adjustment knob. I found this to be a little fiddly, as it is hard to tell where the arm is going to be when you tighten things back up. I think I have it to within .003" from one side to the other now. I'd be tempted to try to shim the conveyor belt assembly if I wanted to get it any closer, rather than loosening up the main structure again.

If it stays where it is, I'll be happy. It's done it's first back so far. Here it is in the garage, in front of the Grizzly dust sucker.






A couple of feet away is an electric bass, getting it's first body routs.



I'm trying my first Zpoxy grain fills today, too. One Rosewood OM that I finished last year and have never done the finish on because requests for other guitars got in the way. The second is a Tele, which I think looks nice as is (This is the back - it has a myrtle top) but is going to get a blonde finish on back and sides.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim nice choice. This machine is a real good sander. I agree with the adjustment setup and have used shims to fine tune my 22-44 Plus. Enjoy!!

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Congrats Jim! Let me know how you like at after running a bunch of wood through it. I was looking at the same few sanders you were so let me know how it works out. I plan to have a new drum sander before the end of summer. I'm also looking at the Grizzly 2 hp cyclone so let me know how yours does keeping the shop clean.

Cheers!

John

John - Here's one of the first things that went through - one of two sets of Mad Rose from Vikwood - the stuff that comes really rough and ugly looking to start. Really have to go light and slow, else the paper loads up right away.



Next I have to sand some Bubinga and Padauk that I resawed myself.

The Grizzly is a 1-1/2 HP unit, I think. It does fine, but I have to get better about juggling hoses and really using it for everything

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim,

Congratulations on your new toy! I have to say I really like those electrics. Very nice!

John and others who are possibly in the market for a sander -

The only machine I had used before looking around the last few weeks was a Delta 18" unit in someone else's shop. It was set up well and worked fine. I had a LONG talk with one of the guys at Woodcraft (who is invariably a reliable source of information), and he ragged on it extensively and in great detail. All of the concerns were with regard to the height adjustment and horizontal transport. He felt that the linkage designed to adjust 4 corner points simultaneously using a grooved belt was flimsier than any self-respecting mechanical designer should ever have let get by. He further expressed the hope that none of the units ever showed up in the store for display again, because he would feel weird trying to convince potential customers not to buy something on display.

I didn't need much more convincing.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim,

I've had mine for about 6 months now. I'm very happy with it. My experience is that once you get the parallelism into spec, the machine has been very stable. I've also learned that you don't go to the fine grits until you only want to remove a SMALL amount of material, else you're asking for a burned stripe plus a clogged belt that may be uncleanable.
I also find you need to run through the grits in sequence, or you are liable to find the remnants of coarse sanding scratches after finishing. These aren't obvious while going through the grits, possibly because all the scratches are in the same direction. I'm going to try doing a sanding with my ROS to remove the coarse grit marks before moving on to the finer grits (about 150 & up).

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

That looks like it did a great job Jim. Is there any variance in your wood thickness from side-to-side or a difference depending on where the wood touched the drum?

Thanks!

John

Good choice of machine! My old 16-32 is, as far as I know, still going
strong after making around 100 guitars and then being sold to the
luthiers' collection near Boston.

Two things that may help with the setup and operation --

First, install good quality flat washers under the heads of the bolts and
under the lock washers (star washers on my old 16-32) that fix the
machine head. This will keep the bolts and nuts from digging into the
aluminum casting and make it 'way easier to adjust the parallelism. I
never had to shim or do anything to the table. I used a machined box-
section aluminum piece I had around as my reference, placed it parallel to
the drum, lowered the (bare) sanding drum onto it, pressed the drum
firmly against the whole length of the aluminum, tightened the bolts. It
was normally within a couple of thous and stayed there until I screwed up
and tried to hog off too much wood in a single pass.

Second, always run oily/resinous woods at an angle as close to 45? as you
can. Long side pieces won't go through at much of an angle, alas, but
place them at as much of one as you can. Use light cuts, high feed rates,
and sharp paper of the proper grit. I've had little burning or loading
problems following those rules.