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Several weeks ago I bought my first thickness sander. The Performax 10-20. I like everything about it except for a little problem I'm having when sanding rosewood. The sandpaper clogs like crazy. I would imagine this is a problem with any thickness sander. I'm wondering if there is any way to soak the sanding strips in something to clean them?
They are not at all worn out. Just a few passes through the sander with some rosewood and a brand new sanding strip is shot.

I've heard that soaking in mineral spirits does the trick, though I've never tried it myself. With rosewood and other oily type woods, I keep one of those rubber eraser-type blocks and every couple passes I'll lift the cover while the drum's spinning and clean off what I can. That helps a lot.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Colby,
Not all drum sanders suffer from this problem. The Peformax I had
before my current drum sander (a Woodmaster) did. In my opinion, the
primary cause is poor dust collection, which I had at the time. You NEED
some good suction to catch as much dust as possible. If you have poor
dust collection, this will be a constant issue for you. The other thing is to
take light passes (slightly less than 1/64" or a quarter turn) at a higher
feed rate. Maybe 5 passes per 1/16". Also, sand at a slight diagonal to
the grain (25 degress or so).

You absolutely need something like this. Check Amazon for smaller
sticks that cost around $15. These things are a godsend.

Cleaning Stick

Use it before those streaks occur. You should be able to soak the
sandpaper in a solvent (not sure which one) to loosen those streaks -
then hang it out to dry.

Best of luck,
SimonSimonF38942.6854050926

Sand on a bias, or angle. Also, looks like your grit is too fine. TRY 80 to 100 grit for rosewood.

Notice your rosewood will have grains that are much darker and more deep purple, that's resin. When you run it straight through, it collects in the same spot on your drum.

Sanding on an angle until the final light passes will misalign the resinous grainlines and give you better service. Good luck. Try heavier grits, angled feed and lighter passes.

Try to peel it. Unmount the paper and flex it. It should scale from the paper. Some people have reported that EasyOff oven cleaner work for this

I don't think dust collection has anything much to do with it. Honestly, it's a function of the wood, the grit, the quality of the paper, and the amount you're trying to sand off in one pass. Better quality papers that don't load as easily will help, as will switching to 80 grit and taking lighter passes.

Coarser grit, lighter passes.
Don Williams38942.7026967593

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

For all of you that acquire pitch and resin buildup on any shop tools (blades, sand paper, drum sanders,router bits, etc.),there is a product made by Wurth (wurthusa.com) called Pitch and Resin Remover. It is not listed in their catalog but is sold through Louisandcompany.com, one of their distributors. You must call and ask for it. Comes in 32oz spray, 1 gal, or 5gal. I buy the 1 gal, pour it in a coffee can with lid. insert your performax roll- wait a couple of minutes, retrieve and drain the solution back to the can for the next time. Take and rinse off. Pretty close to magical stuff! Will clean a saw blade in less than 30 seconds. This stuff really works!

dean,
leucadia, ca

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Dean

I agree with the comments regarding sanding on a bias and using coarser grit sanding belts. I use 80 grit when sanding the resinous woods. I am doubtful, however, that dust collection is the major cure for this problem. I've recently upgraded my dust collection system (I've dedicated a large shop vac for use with my Performax only), and I still get streaks, even after cleaning the belt with a gum stick after each pass.

Soaking the strips in mineral spirits does work. I keep a large, wide-mouth jar full of MS and dunk the sanding belts into it after they've become fouled. I leave them in the solution to soak for a few days or longer. After the soak, the fouled areas clean up easily with a few wipes from a rag.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Hi folks,
Just thought I would chime in about the dust collection. There is a reason
drum sanders list CFM requirements of greater than 500 or 600. They
are one of the most demanding of the woodworking machines in terms of
dust collection that most of us use. While shop vacs are good, they will
not give you the performance of a good dust collector. Dust collectors
are built to move a lot of air while vacuums move very little air at high
pressures. And collecting dust from machines requires moving lots of
air.


That said, Colby, I think these guys are right. You will probably notice the
biggest gains in performance if you ensure that you are:

Using the appropriate sanding grit -- Taking a shallow depth of cut with
a faster feed rate (which prevents heat buildup) -- Feeding at an angle.


Colby, I mentioned the dust collection issue only because I thought it
might have some relevance for you. If your dust collection is inadequate,
getting the right size dust collector can and will make a noticeable
difference in your drum sander's performance.

Best of luck friend,
SimonSimonF38942.8461458333

Dust colection does in fact have a bearing on how quickly the paper will gum up. If the dust remains, it gets "recycled" onto the wood and pickup back up by the sandpaper, quickly clogging it.

Every now and again, I'll start sanding, but forgot to open the blast gate to the sander, and sure enough, I've killed paper isntantly...

Now, it's not the cure all, for sure. As was said, the best solution for rosewoods is coarse paper(minimum of 80 grit), fast feed, light cuts, and at the sharpest angle you can get. In fact, I run tops and backs through the sander sideways if i can, until the final 2 passes. Even spruce tops go through sideways, as they cut so much fast and smoother this way.

Well I have to agree with Simon on this one. Dust collection plays a big part in preventing build-up. Try sanding oily woods without dust collection. Bruce Dicky's suggestions are right on. 60-80 grit, sand on a bias, clean with crepe stick often. I use oven cleaner to remove the buildup. Rinse and let dry overnite.

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The Zootman
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Doolin even has added a blower/puffer to his drum sander. He reverses the suction on a wet/dry vac making it a blower to puff the dust airborne, which is then grabbed by the dust collection system. Appears to be effective.

The picture above is concentrated resin and the rubber cleaners are basically ineffective as a cleaning aid. I have a card file for cleaning files, nylon one side, steel bristles on the other. It's the only way I've halfway recovered paper as bad as this.

I have a dual drum sander, so for me, this look, means two times $13 or twenty six bucks down the drain.

Here is a hint for you. Return heavily resined purchases to point of origin, accept only browner Indian rosewoods and you'll have no more of this problem. Of course the purple is purty. As is the orange/red of cocobolo, which does the same thing only worse...

Best solution to sanding this type of wood, don't run it straight through with the grainlines, run it slightly crossgrain. You can finish off with a ROS, random orbital sander....

It's a learning process.

Hey Bob, bout stomped on your toes there. I've not tried the oven cleaner, nasty stuff no matter what you use it for. I use that to clean my grates in my smoker, works great for that too.

   This is the fun of wood. Sometimes coarser is better. 60 grit is my choice. finer will creat lots of heat. Also good dust sucker is needed
john hall

Here is a hint for you. Return heavily resined purchases to point of origin, accept only browner Indian rosewoods and you'll have no more of this problem.

Hmm, I'll offer one better; send me your dense, resinous EIR and I'll send back my brown, lighter EIR. Honest! I prefer the gummy stuff....

Seems like the higher CFM of the dust collector the more cooling effect on the sanding operation and media. This in turn "might" help prevent buildup.
Nelson

Try oven cleaner. It works and is readily available.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I've been kicking around the idea of cutting out the little plastic grate that spans the dust collector opening on the 10-20. Seems like it takes up half the surface area, that's got to affect airflow. I understand the safety aspect of not wanting someone to shove their hand in there when the drum's moving, but I don't ever run it without the dust collector hooked up.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I agree with the majority that using coarser grit with less aggressive passes being fed at an angle will go a long way to avoiding this gum, as will GOOD extraction, but some times, for what ever reason it just happens.

When it does, and it is heavy gum which is isolated to a section of a fairly new belt as in Colby's image, I have used an old 1/2" chisel held at just the right angle against the drum. I find that the heavy deposits will flake away quite easy if you have not neglected it too long and allowed it to be baked on. Just rotate the drum by hand, don't attempt to do this with her powered up.

Once the worst has flaked off, I then hit it with a cleaning stick and it is good to go again.

Cheers

Kim

My pseudo-neanderthal suggestion -

Take off the majority of the thickness with a Wagner - make chips instead of dust.

Sand to final thickness. Use large grits as suggested above. I was leery of doing that with my Gilbert disk, fearing it would make a nasty surface, but I now use 80 grit on the little sanding disk for both tops and backs.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Well, I know all you folks place a high value on a good dust collector, but since mine is pretty bad, I've had to find out for myself that very light passes with a coarse paper will keep the resins from caking onto the drum. More dust stays on the wood as its coming out of the sander than what gets sucked up, especially with the denser more oily woods. So even though a great vacuum system will help, you can have a crappy dust collector like mine and still avoid the majority of all this by taking lighter passes with coarser grits. If I hadn't experienced this, I wouldn't have said it.

Its easy to say "You need to spend a lot of money on a better dust collector", but Colby needs to have help dealing with using what he has at the moment....

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I've been working with Mike Dooling on at the blower aspect of the dust collection. Many of the dual drum sanders create a vacuum when the drums are churning which allows the dust collector to do a less than optimum job. It gets the stuff the churns up in the "air" of the sander but there was always a pile of dust on the following edge. This blower gets everything up and "airborn" so the collector can do its job.
Bruce D. look into doing this. It will change the way your dc works on the General.
To the original question: heat is your problem. You are melting the resins in the wood. So there are a few different solutions. Good dust collection is indeed a factor. It will keep the drum running cooler. Light passes are critical. I do only .007" per pass and that's with a dual drum running 60/120. I had an indicator made for my machine so I know exactly how much is the right amount of removal. Coarse paper will help a lot. And as said before, run it at as much of an angle as you can.
Welcome to the world of oily woods!

Paul and Bruce, regarding blowing the dust,

I am not sure if I understand, does it just blow the dust into the collector?
Creating a dust generator is a bad idea.

Thanks for all the help guys! I have used both Cocobolo Rosewood and East Indian Rosewood. Cocobolo seems even worse than the East Indian. I have been using 80-grit paper to get them close then I switch to 120 before going the ROS. I have also tried the little rubber blocks for cleaning. They don't seem to help much. They sure don't touch it once it starts building up. I will try sanding at an angle to the grain. I will also try cleaning the sanding strips. My dust collection is a 6 hp shop vac. I know it could probably be better, I'm just getting tired of spending money.

Colby, I've had that problem before. What I did is take a cheap wire brush and touch it to those caked on places. Most of it usually comes off. I get those cheap wire brushes you find at the dollar stores. I haven't tried the oven cleaner but it sounds kind of messy.