Official Luthiers Forum!

Remember last week when I said my Ryobi drum sander had served me well for the last 10 years or so.....Well it serves me no more. It blew a gear in the conveyor drive reduction. I took it apart and it doesn't look like something I can easily or cheaply repair so I think I'll soon be shopping for a new sander.

I like the idea of grizzlys dual drums but I'll have a look around at the other candidates as well.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Sorry to hear it John. Maybe you can strip it down and sell for parts as the Ryobi isn't made anymore. If you do, let me know as that is the same one I have. You might even be able to build a few new jigs using the drum.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

I find it interesting when You compare the Grizly 2 drum sander to the General one. They look the same but when You look at the spec sheet the general is a lot heavier. All that weight comes from somewhere. I would suggest it comes from the extra Quality. As I've said before. Check out General and if you can get a good deal go with them. Grizly and the others are a little cheaper though but you get what you pay for. If you can ever find a used General buy it but you will rarely see any used General tools and if you do, they will be as much as a new Grizly.arvey38530.6128125

I had a chance to see the new Shop Fox dual drum sander last week. It has a particle board table. Now that's one I would really stay away from. As I said in an earlier post I love the Powermatic 25 inch dual drum. Has plenty of power is very well built. The only problem is I am running out of things to sand!

i do recall reading some criticism of the griz a couple years ago regarding the difficulty in changing grits and fixing the agrasive to th drums. you might want to check into it.

I'm thinking this looks kind'a cool. Especially considering the price. It is open ended which a lot of people wouldn't like but I've had one for quite a while with no trouble and this thing looks pretty sturdy after studying the manual.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

John it looks a great bit of kit and the drum looks as though it is pretty well held at the one end.

I have a cantilever design sander and haven't had any problems, or though I could see a dual drumwould be more verstaile, the problem I had was I couldn't have anything too heavy as my workshop is down a set of steps. Sorry to hear your old faithful has passed away.

The other thing I like about this is that it looks like you can change the belt in just a minute or so for different grits. Not so with any drum sander I've seen.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I have a Jet sander the same as your Performax except made in Germany for the european market, I am pretty adept at changing the belt but it still takes a good 10 Minutes, which can be a bind as I like 120 for General, 80 for the more resinous stuff, and I like to keep a belt just for Spruce and Light woods. So a quick change time is a real advantage.

John


I just read my last post, I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs. Do ,you have that expression in the USA?

   Hi John
I to have been looking at the belt sander and I am seriously thinking of it. I did try one and it did okay. The one I played with had about .004 different across the table but that want too big a deal to me.
   The open side was more stable than I thought . Once I studied it the wider belt sanders are actually open ended to a degree
john

I use my sander as much as any tool in the shop. Virtually every piece that
goes into a guitar goes through the sander at least once in the process.
So when I went shopping for a new sander, I decided that the important
things for me are:
-- ability to dial in the eveness and maintain it
-- low operating costs (including the abrasive)
-- ability to sand thin and short pieces
-- good customer service.

The dual-belt sanders are production tools and of limited use in a
lutherie environment, I decided. Yes, I start with coarse abasive and finish
with fine, but if it's easy to change grits that's all I need. Aligning and
maintaining two drums seems much harder than caring for one, as well as
being a power hog. One drum's good enough for me.

I never had problems with the stability or adjustment of my 16"
cantilevered Performax. (I know others say that they have, but I didn't.)
The 25" is supported on both sides, so I figured that it would be even
more stable. So far, it is. It's more difficult to set up originally, but once it
was dialed in, it stayed put.

I spend more time running odd little bits (binding, veneers, purfling
strips) through the sander than I do thicknessing tops, sides, and backs.
None of the dual-belts can handle something as short as a headstock
veneer and I don't want to have to make, find, and use a sled every time I
need to pass a short piece through the sander. In fact, it would be nice if
the Performax would take shorter pieces than 6" but I can live with that.

I don't want to have to invest in a pile of expensive belts for the sander. I
like the convenience and low cost (and ease of storage) of rolls of
standard width sandpaper. And I found that the hook-and-loop variety
have too much squish space for me -- they're not as accurate as I like.
Another point for Performax with its wrap style of drum.

Finally, my experience with a variety of companies led to stay with
Performax. Their customer service can't be beat. When I unpacked my 25"
sander, the conveyor belt was wrinkled. A call to Performax and a new
one was in overnight UPS, at no charge, without my even asking! Every
problem or question has been addressed by knowledgeable people and
resolved very quickly. I have a lot of loyalty to them just for their
commitment to customer service. I can't say that about other companies.

Thanks for you advice Rick. I too am looking for a good sander and customer service is most important to me. you are one of the people I will most certainly listen to.
john hall

[QUOTE=John How] I'm thinking this looks kind'a cool. Especially considering the price. It is open ended which a lot of people wouldn't like but I've had one for quite a while with no trouble and this thing looks pretty sturdy after studying the manual.[/QUOTE]

That's a neat little sander, but the 18" is just an extra $1000 (Ducking) But why not go with the G9962Z
-- it was designed by a famous luthier! Who wanted to sand thin wood!

The interesting thing about the 15" is that they also cheapened the control system for the belt. It has a wierd "pneumatic eye" that controls a rather strange looking actuator. The 18" uses an electric eye that powers an electric solonoid valve which drives a pneumatic cylinder. Those are pretty standard parts that could be replaced at a place like Automation Direct or MSC. The 18" looks a lot less tweaky from here, of course I have no experience with these machines so I could be wrong.

ON EDIT: I looked at the manuals for the 15", 18" and the 24". Turns out that the only one that has the electric eye system is the 18". Like I said in a different thread, the 18" looks like a copy of the same machine that Jim Olson copied. And there are a lot less controls for the belt oscillation than on the older Grizzleys. The way these sanders work is that the belt is always moving from side to side. On average, that keeps it centered. The top roller pivots back and forth.

And the doubly supported sanders have a quick release for changing the belts, so it's only a few seconds more to change a belt. The top roller is only supported by a pneumatic cylinder in the center in either case.

Of the three manuals I looked at, I like the construction of the 18" better than the other two. The table is supported better as well.EricKeller38530.9635648148

John How
Do you actually own that Grizzley 15 inch sander? If so, what's it like to use?

No John I don't. My Ryobi just gave up the ghost, the Reduction drive for the feed belt stripped it's gears. So now I am just looking at the options. What I like about the 15" grizzly is that replacement belts are onlly $21 and after looking at the manual, it seems pretty well constructed. The 18" grizzly uses only a single drum at the working end so it is just like a drum sander instead of a belt sander, it is a larger drum than most and since it is a belt there is more sandpaper area but I still like the idea of an adjustable platen with 2 lower rollers to control the sanding depth like the 15" has. I'm really not sure what I'm gonna do and it kinda depends on selling a few guitars in the near future.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I like that platen idea as well. I wish it was 16 inches across and did not necessitate two passes for a top or back.

Yeah me too, Ya'd think that a guy who is a luthier (Pres of Grizzly) would'a thought of that.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.