Need sander suggestions...

[Matt Zach]

I recently purchased the Performax 16-32 drum sander from Amazon. I am a little disappointed in the performance of the Taiwanese 1.5 HP drum motor. Some of the folks in here mentioned that they used to come with a Leeson motor, which seemed to be a beefier component. I bought this sander with these purpose of both thickness sanding and (moderate) finish sanding. The thickness sanding is not possible to do at a 1/16th of an inch at a time on the white oak I am using. In fact, I can only take off about 1/100 of an inch at a pass if I'm lucky. The circuit breaker on the motor continually pops. I'm looking for suggestions on another sander that is under $1000, that will serve my purpose. The only other sander that I have been able to find is the Grizzly G1079 for around $750. Can anyone recommend another sander that I might be able to compare. Thanks for all of your valued help again. Matt

[Bob S.]

Matt,

I doubt you will find anything under $4k that will do thickness sanding for you. I have used 36 grit to waste away some oak when using it as a thickness sander but as you noted, it's a slow process. The 16/32 is a hobby grade sander.

Bob S.

[Matt Zach]

[GeeDubb]

I have a 24" dual drum from General International with a 3hp motor. It won't surface much more than what you're seeing w/o bogging down (and usually ruining the belts). Use a planer for thicknessing and the sander for final thicknessing/finishing.

Gary

[RWM]

possibility.

I am not sure that the above advice is correct. I would call Grizzly and discuss your needs. I have found that they are great about discussing the limitations of their machines.

I am also one of the guys with the 16-32 with a Leeson motor. Just to check I just ran some cherry through it. I used a 12" x 34" pieces through using

36 grit paper. Each pass I took I full crank and the machine did not have any problem.

Good Luck - Bob McBreen

[Matt Zach]

[Matt Zach]

[Bay Area Dave]

Matt, what does the manual say about depth of "cut"? Perhaps the tool isn't intended to sand as deeply as you expect; then again maybe it is! :) Check it out and let us know.

dave

Matt Zach wrote:

[Doug Miller]

IMO if you're hoping to remove 1/8" in a _single_pass_ that's a bit unrealistic.

-- Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

[Lawrence A. Ramsey]

Your furniture companies use a planer first then sand. You are really taklking about some work when you are sanding a board 12" or greater/ Look at a 3x24" belt sander and how much they work on a peice 3" wide and maybe 10" long.

[Preston Andreas]

For thickness sanding, you need to start with wide belt sanders.

Preston

possibility.

[Bob S.]

Bob,

It wasn't advise...it was a statement and if you check the Grizzly site, $3,795 is the lowest price for what he's wanting to do. I have the 16/32 with the Taiwanese motor and it will not do 1/16" passes without tripping out the motor CB. Mine is on a 20A circuit.

Bob S.

[RWM]

I checked the Grizzly site and didn't see what you are talking about.

His 1/16" inch in one pass might be unrealistic, considering I wouldn't even try that with a great planer, but Grizzly might tell him that one of their planer would do the job. I also don't know/remember what his expectations are for amount of use.

Bob McBreen

[TeamCasa]

Matt, You are never going to get a drum sander for this kind of money to work as well as a planer. I have the exact same model. It works great, as long as I don't try to use it for something it was never intended for. How happy would you be if you had to break-up a concrete driveway and were given a small demo hammer instead of the 90lb air powered jack hammer and Bobcat?

Get a planer. Dave

[Matt Zach]

[Robert Bonomi]

I have _no_idea_ what a cost figure is (beyond "lots and lots of dollars"), but the 'furniture factory' at the local technical high-school had a real industrial-grade 36" wide drum sander. *TRIPLE* drums -- three grits in one pass. 440V powered, and drew around SEVENTY AMPS at full load. (separate ammeters for each of the three drum moters, plus a separate ammeter for the feed motor) It didn't hesitate, at taking 3/4" hard maple, 30" wide, down to 1/2", in a single pass.

Note: the dust-collector connection looked like furnace ductwork -- at least

8" dia.

For what you claim to want to do, I suspect 10 HP (honest HP, not 'vacuum cleaner HP') is the power range you should be looking in.

[Matt Zach]

Well, I appreciate all the help on this. I guess I was a little over expectant with what I bought. So, if I understand how you folks use this sander, it is not really used for thickness sanding much at all, just for semi-finish sanding. How fine a grit can be used on this sander, I have some 150 and some 280 (yes -

280), and I'm go> > >Really??? Hmmmm...

[GeeDubb]

I think you can go as fine as you want to. You'll find that real fine paper requires real shallow passes. It's something you'll have to experiment with.

On my dual drum I was running 150 in front, 220 in back and wished I had 280 in front and 320 or finer on the rear drum on soft woods like alder. The

220 was still too visible on soft wood.

Then there's the issue of one or more little pitch patches collecting on a fine sanding belt which in essence, gouges the damn stock you're running through it........

Gary (note to self, knotty alder knots have pitch......)