Drum Sander ?

[HotRod]

For those that havn't read my other post I already have a planner that I may sell but I need to get a mold making machine and was also thinking about a drum sand, so can anyone help iwht these questions

Cost wise I can buy a molder/planner for around $1200 CND and a good drum sander for $1600 CND or a combo WoodMaster unit for $2600

1) Can I sand molding with a drum sander if I put "flaps on it"? 2) I was looking at a woodmaster combo unit and was wondering what disadvatages a single drum unit has to the dual drum units I've seen.

3) Does having a variable speed belt pushing the wood through make for better planning and sanding?

[George]

Flap sanding with a separate device only. Doubt you'd have the clearance, even of you could jury rig something. The W&H molder of mine makes a paintable surface from the knives, imagine yours would too. If you had a lot of , say crown molding to do, you could rig a sanding mop to a motor shaft, jig and hand feed pretty easily. Flap sander and drill motor for smaller amounts.

Having variable feed rates helps on single drum sanders. Compensates for wood differences and grits.

No thoughts on dual drums, unless they allow two grits. It's the hold-downs that count.

[HotRod]

For my initial project I'm doing a lot of knotty pine and need to be able to stain it. If I can't use the drum sander to sand the trim this may change my desicion some.

[bf]

the dual drum lets you put two different grits on, I believe.. So you could have 60 grit on the first wheel, and then 80 on the second wheel.. Saves time, because you are doing two grits at a time, I guess..No personal experience. It would be ideal if you could put the same grit on both drums and set the second one a little bit lower.. That would allow you to do 2 passes with 60 grit at once. I don't know if that's possible, but that would be great for me, because it takes me multiple passes with 60 grit to clean up planer marks and complete the "flattening" process.

Yes, it's a nice feature.. I can tell you this from experience. If you are sanding a 3" wide board, you can run it through faster than if you are sanding a 12" board, because the machine is doing less work. Likewise, if you accidently set the drum sander too aggressive (trying to take off too much in one pass), it's nice to be able to turn that feed knob down real slow.