Performax 16/32, depth of cut question

[Michael Weber]

I have an old but new to me Performax 16/32. After initial conveyor tracking issues it seems to be working okay. I have no manual for it. If I adjust the depth of cut a quarter turn more than the previous pass the drum motor will stop as the wood feeds through. This happens with narrow hardwood 3 inches or so wide so I can't imagine how little it would need to be adjusted for something wide. The conveyor motor continues to feed the wood. Is that normal? Do I have some kind of motor issue or am I trying to take too much off at once. If it were a wide board I could understand it but 3 inches? It's has 120 grit installed on the drum. Thanks, Mike

[CPeter James]

Remember, this is a SANDER, not a PLANER! There is a steep learning curve to these. AMHIK, I have bought 2 of these because the PO did not understand how to use them and wrote them off as a POS. Actually they worked perfectly once adjusted and used for what were were meant to be used for.

CPeter

[David Peterson MN]

A little bit at a time...we all probably did what you are doing. It is a learning process with those machines. I love my 16/32. Think 1/16 of a turn. The only time I would approach 1/4 turn on a board that narrow is with 36 grit paper. Enjoy the machine!

[Jeff Miller]

You should not have a problem going a 1/4 turn at a time with a 3" wide piece, I know I wouldn't on mine. I can't think what would cause it. Somebody will be along with more knowledge than me:)


JEFF:D

[Rick Huelsbeck]

I go up to half a turn on 6" walnut and it does not even bog down. I have the newer jet, but still that should not happen on a 3" piece of wood. I would have the motor checked, also how fast are you feeding the wood. I will run at about 3 when doing 1/32 on walnut at 6". Could be the capacitor too. Slight short could be causing the power to bypass the motor.

[Anthony Whitesell]

It definately depends on the wood. Really soft woods (pine) and really hard woods (hard maple) will not be able to remove as much per pass than the intermediate woods. It also depends on the grit. You note you are using 120g, which is middle of the road. In my experience, 1/4 would be the max for an intermediate wood with new 120g paper. What is the condition of you paper? Is the paper older or loaded? Do you have DC or shopvac connected? Does this model have the SmartSand control on it?

Here is something you can try. Raise the drum 1/4 turn, and lower it as the board feeds through and take note of what happens with the drum motor. Even better would be to read the amperage draw, but that would take more work than you may want to put in to it.

[Leo Vogel]

Michael - try this. Take a board about 10 inches wide, draw a few pencil marks across it, and see just how little you have to turn the crank to get it to sand off the marks. You will be surprised.

[Michael Weber]

Thanks everyone. Nothing like a good consensus ;) I do have dust collection on it. I guess this is going to be a little like learning to use a jointer. I do have to admit I had the conveyor speed set to maximum. The paper is what came on it and looks to be pretty worn except on the ends. Still I was surprised it just stopped dead like that. Didn't seem to bog down before it stopped. Not even sure what the HP of the motor is. I'll try to get a little more experience with it tomorrow and slow down the feed speed to see what happens.

[Travis Porter]

Conveyor speed needs to be MUCH slower, and put some new paper on it. I normally ran 100 grit when I had my Performax. I would also suggest putting a Wixie on it. I did on my 22-44 when I had it and it was a very nice addition and I got it for $50 bucks.

[Keith Gwin]

One thing I had to get through my head is to not treat it like a planer. When you turn the handle, run the piece through several times before you turn the handle again. Just because you ran the piece through doesn't mean that it has removed all of the stock for that particular setting. I put some nice burn marks in some maple by lowering the drum head to often. Hope this helps.

[Scott Crumpton]

I'll second Keith's advice to run the stock through several times before lowering the drum. I'll also add that you need to keep track of the orientation of the stock on each pass through the machine. Since the drum will never be exactly parallel to the table, you can get into trouble if you lower the drum and turn the stock over in the same pass. The effect is one of compounding the error and it may be enough to stall the drum or burn the stock.

I don't actually have the Performax 16/32, I've got the Ryobi clone. So I can't comment on the power issue except to say that I've had no trouble using the Ryobi to surface plane Hickory with 36 grit. Need to stop every half hour to let the motor cool though. :) It's also gentle enough to sand finished scroll saw work. I find it to be an amazingly versitle machine, well worth the effort to set up correctly and learn to use.

[Peter Quinn]

To put some numbers on it, the machine lowers about 1/16" per complete evolution of the height hand wheel, but the mahcine is only capable of removing around .012" per pass. So if one revolution is .0625", then you need to take less than one quarter turn per pass, and that assumes that the head was just touching on the last pass. Grit, feed speed, sandpapers condition, all are factors determing how much you can take off in a single pass.

[Bob Rufener]

A quarter turn is normally not too much. Your feed rate needs to be adjusted. Slow it way down. I recommend that you practice a bit using different feed rates and depth adjustments. A little bit at a time at a slow speed rate will give you excellent results. The machine doesn't have a heavy duty motor on it so it will trip out quickly if overloaded.

They do a wonderful job once you get accustomed to it.l