Open end drum sander

[glenn witgen]

Looking at buying a open ended drum sander.
Looked at the Jet 16/32 and the new Delta 18\36.
Wonder how users feel about both.

[Anthony Whitesell]

The one big difference is movable head versus movable table. The movable head may allow for more end play (I haven't seen any on mine) but the table takes more parts to move and keep level. I think you'll find that you'll get an equal number of advocates on both sides.

P.S. I have the Jet 16/32 and love it. Since it's the only one I've used, I don't know if there is better. This one is REALLY nice.

[John Carlo]

I have the Performax 22-44 and it works great. On this one, the table moves up and down. I have a 22-44 here at school and the head moves up and down. The obvious here is that once set up. axillary infeed and outfeed rollers don't have to be adjusted. But my 22-44 pro at home has a larger feed bed. Both models leave straight line scratches on the wood but a ROS easily cleans this up.
The new Jet has a head that oscillates back and forth. I saw one recently at Woodcraft and it seems like a great idea.

[David Christopher]

Glen, I have the jet 16/32 and love it. It is easy to set up and ajust, and the newer ones have the automatic conveyor ajustment so you dont feed to fast. just make sure you have a vacuum or DC

[Byron Trantham]

My Bother-In-Law owns a Performax 16/32 (head moves) and after using his a couple times I bought the Grizzly 18/36 (the table moves). Mine is a beast. It took two of us to lift the assembly onto the stand! I have not found any advantage or disadvantage to either method. The Grizzly price was right and I think I got a lot for my money. ;)

[Dewey Torres]

I also have the Jet 16/32" and I love it but...

It is not easy to set up the tracking on the conveyor belt and drum leveling from side to side.

The good thing is that once you get it it's golden. A great machine.

[Chris Padilla]

I have the older model 18-36 from Delta. I picked it up used off of craigslist.

After fiddling with it for an entire Saturday many Saturday's ago, I got it working very satisfactorily.

The table moves up and down on this one and the system is a bit kludgy in my opinion. If I were doing large adjustment all the time, it would be tiresome and painful. I have slipping issue sometimes when cranking it. However, I've been doing a lot of veneer sanding (down to 1/16") of 3/32" to 1/8" bandsawn veneers and once I got it set up for that, it has done a very nice job.

Getting the conveyor belt to track so it stops working itself off in one direction can be tough but I got used to the process of sliding it back over. Then I out of the blue I decided to fiddle with the tension just one more time and voila, it now tracks perfectly...somehow!

So it isn't perfect but once dialed in and with little height adjustment, I'm actually quite happy with its performance.

High volume flow dust collection is a must for the best performance and for your health around these sanders.

The name of the game with these is patience and to miniminze how much you are removing per pass. They aren't a planer. Keep your sandpaper clean and change it at the first sign of accumulation.

I spent many many MANY hours slowly and meticulously sanding 16 sheets of veneer I had resawn. I was surprised how long it took...it was mind-numbing actually. But, I have nice results from my work and I'm not a production shop so that is the way it goes....

[Byron Trantham]

I have the older model 18-36 from Delta. I picked it up used off of craigslist.

After fiddling with it for an entire Saturday many Saturday's ago, I got it working very satisfactorily.

The table moves up and down on this one and the system is a bit kludgy in my opinion. If I were doing large adjustment all the time, it would be tiresome and painful. I have slipping issue sometimes when cranking it. However, I've been doing a lot of veneer sanding (down to 1/16") of 3/32" to 1/8" bandsawn veneers and once I got it set up for that, it has done a very nice job.

Getting the conveyor belt to track so it stops working itself off in one direction can be tough but I got used to the process of sliding it back over. Then I out of the blue I decided to fiddle with the tension just one more time and voila, it now tracks perfectly...somehow!

So it isn't perfect but once dialed in and with little height adjustment, I'm actually quite happy with its performance.

High volume flow dust collection is a must for the best performance and for your health around these sanders.

The name of the game with these is patience and to miniminze how much you are removing per pass. They aren't a planer. Keep your sandpaper clean and change it at the first sign of accumulation.

I spent many many MANY hours slowly and meticulously sanding 16 sheets of veneer I had resawn. I was surprised how long it took...it was mind-numbing actually. But, I have nice results from my work and I'm not a production shop so that is the way it goes....


My Grizzly has the same problem. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get the conveyor belt to track straight but now it seems to be solid. As for thickness per pass? THIN! As Chris pointed out they are not a planer. Time? Yep it can seem to take for ever. Mine has speed adjustment but I keep it about the middle. Seems to work better. :D

[frank shic]

love my performax 16/32 and cannot imagine every trying to sand finished raised panel assemblies without it. they show up pretty frequently on ebay and craigslist. i got mine for about half the retail price although i had to drive 2 hours each way!

[Rick Huelsbeck]

Very happy with it, had it set up in about 2 hours including leveling the head, tracking was dead on out of the box.

[Chris Padilla]

Frank, I found mine in Santa Cruz so it wasn't quite the haul you had...but some! :)

To add a bit to Byron's post: For the first pass through after a height-adjustment, I like to run the conveyor belt VERY slow. I then turn the piece around and send it through again at a faster feed. I find sending pieces through twice with no height adjustment seems to have good results. It is tiresome and takes longer but for the most part, I've gotten very very good results.

For all the walnut veneers, I did, I started with 180 grit and found that it was too light and I couldn't sand it deep enough. I then switched to 120 grit and was very happy with those results. Coarser grits will allow you to sand a deeper than lighter grits, of course, and the 120 for me gave a nice finished product for veneering.

[Wayne Wheeling]

Had a 16-32 Plus...got talked out of it on a trade! Started looking again, found a 22-44 Pro with 2 boxes of sandpaper that had only been used VERY little for a $1000. Love it! Also liked the 16-32..but these are the only 2 I have ever used, so I can't judge any of the others! No tracking problems or anything else on either of mine. The 22-44 had a Wixey installed on it when I bought it...Nice!
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/redhawknc1/22-44.jpg

[frank shic]

i would love having a 22-44 to run the wider raised panels through in one pass instead of having to flip the panel around!

[Cary Falk]

I got a Grizzly 18/36 on CL and I am very happy with it.

[Doug Shepard]

I've had a Performax 16-32 for maybe 15 years or so and I'm used to it's little quirks and it does a good job. No experience with the Delta though I dont care much for the idea of the table moving instead of the head. A couple weeks before Christmas I was in Performance Tool near here to order a mobile base for my PM66 and noticed a couple much bigger Jet models with matal cabinet bases with prices on them that seemed like a steal. I had brief thoughts of buying one on the spot and selling my 16-32. Seems like one was about the same price I paid for my 16-32 new and the other around $1200 but both were bigger machines. Gotta stay out of that candy store.

[Gary Muto]

Doug,
Did you see the 22-44" with the oscillating drum. It has an enclosed metal base with integral casters. It's a $500 option, but with the latest price increases the total comes to $2000.

[Doug Shepard]

Gary
They had 2 different ones with enclosed metal bases and I'm pretty sure one of them was oscillating. I wasn't paying that much attention but thought the prices were pretty darn good for the size. I'm not sure if one of them was a demo (returned?) unit or not but I could swear one had a $999 price or thereabouts. They also became a Festool dealer since the last I was in there, Apparently that was about 6 months ago. I'll have go back in a couple weeks or so when my mobile base comes in, so I'll double check on the sanders.

[Bernhard Lampert]

You may want to take a look at a Northstate 16" widebelt; Leneave co of Charlottte, NC is the distributor. The machine is identical (except for paint color) to the Powermatic, but priced substantially less.
I have the 3 phase (7.5 hp) version, but it is also sold in an 5hp single phase version. I had this machine for 3 years now. It was perfect out of the box; I can sand veneer on this machine. It does have a removable platen.
This machine replaced a double drum 25" sander. The diffeence between the machines is like day and night.

Cheers,
Bernhard