Thinking about an oscillating edge sander and a drum sander.

[Frank Shannon]

Are edge sanders and drum sanders money makers? I've got to believe they are but all that glitters as they say.

[Philip Rodriquez]

It all depends on what you are going to use them for. With that said, oscillating is a better choice because they provide a smoother finish.

[Mark Rakestraw]

I don't make much money :), but wouldn't be without my oscillating edge sander.

[glenn bradley]

Not sure what you mean by money makers. I thought I needed an oscillating spindle sander. Thank goodness I decided to pick up the cheap Ridgid unit to see how I liked the basic tool. What I learned is that I really wanted an oscillating belt sander, the spindle is purely optional for me. Just my .02.

[Cary Falk]

I'm just a hobbiest but you can have my oscillating spindle and edge sander when you pry them from my cold dead hands. I use the belt sander more but I love both of them equally.:D

[Frank Shannon]

Great feedback, thanks.

To elaborate.....

By money maker I'm talking saving time vs. sanding with ROS and oscillating hand sanders and of course sanding blocks.

I'm thinking mainly about cabinet doors, drawer fronts and panels through a drum sander after glue up and at the oscillating belt sander after trimming edges to size. Possibly to smooth out dovetail drawers. Also parts for toy wagons and ride on toys, all made from various hardwoods.

Also, does the platten on an edge sander need to be longer than the edge being sanded? Is it practical to sand the long edge of a 36x12 drawer front on an edge sander that has a 29" platten?

[Quinn McCarthy]

When I was looking at edge sanders the thing I found odd was that if you are planning on sanding material longer than the platten that rules out half of the edge sanders out there because they have dust ports that don't move. That was all of the grizzly machines at the time. I do quite a bit od 10-12' material. I bought the Vega. What a wonderful machine it is.

Hope that helps.

Quinn

[Neil Brooks]

I have the Ridgid OSS (http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/rgideb4424rvu.html), and ... rather love it, for the money. I use it ... more than I ever thought I would, and ... I figured I'd use it plenty.

That said, I'm trying ... desperately ... to convince my next-door-neighbor to buy an edge sander, and/or a wide belt sander :)

For the record ... I'm having absolutely no luck. Something about a brand new SUV, and a baby on the way.

Yeah: THAT old story ;)

[Frank Shannon]

I have the Ridgid OSS (http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/rgideb4424rvu.html), and ... rather love it, for the money. I use it ... more than I ever thought I would, and ... I figured I'd use it plenty.

That said, I'm trying ... desperately ... to convince my next-door-neighbor to buy an edge sander, and/or a wide belt sander :)

For the record ... I'm having absolutely no luck. Something about a brand new SUV, and a baby on the way.

Yeah: THAT old story ;)

Have you edge sanded straight pieces greatly longer than the platten on the Ridgid? If so what are your impressions of that?

[Frank Shannon]

When I was looking at edge sanders the thing I found odd was that if you are planning on sanding material longer than the platten that rules out half of the edge sanders out there because they have dust ports that don't move. That was all of the grizzly machines at the time. I do quite a bit od 10-12' material. I bought the Vega. What a wonderful machine it is.

Hope that helps.

Quinn

The Vega caught my eye as soon as I started looking because of the 48" platten. Which model do you have? Looks like I would want the 71177.

[David Hostetler]

I make lots of curved objects. Toy cars, trucks and the like, and wouldn't be able to put out even half the quality I do without my Ridgid Oscillating sander... I think I can blame my high school for that though. They taught us with oscillating sanders...

[Clint Olver]

Great feedback, thanks.

To elaborate.....

By money maker I'm talking saving time vs. sanding with ROS and oscillating hand sanders and of course sanding blocks.

I'm thinking mainly about cabinet doors, drawer fronts and panels through a drum sander after glue up and at the oscillating belt sander after trimming edges to size. Possibly to smooth out dovetail drawers. ...



This is why I bought an edge sander and the drum sander. I bought the General drum sander for panel doors, but pretty much everything goes through it. I picked up the old Progress edge sander for panels as well, and for flushing drawer joints.

C

[Neil Brooks]

Have you edge sanded straight pieces greatly longer than the platten on the Ridgid? If so what are your impressions of that?

Good question.

Yeah. In fact, I have some 60" panels that I'm using in a project, right now. I DO tend to put stuff like that through the edge sander.

The results are directly proportionate to how careful I am to keep things aligned.

I wouldn't say you have to be ridiculously careful, but ... with a 19" wide platen, and a panel that's roughly three times the length ... there IS a lot of room for things to go bad.

But ... generally ... my results are well within my world of tolerance.

The "f'rinstance" is ... it's the side panels, on this:

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/woodstore_2123_27872371

I'm not jointing the edges. I'm just smoothing them. It works well enough for that purpose, IME.

[Callan Campbell]

I have the Ridgid OSS (http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/rgideb4424rvu.html), and ... rather love it, for the money. I use it ... more than I ever thought I would, and ... I figured I'd use it plenty.

That said, I'm trying ... desperately ... to convince my next-door-neighbor to buy an edge sander, and/or a wide belt sander :)

For the record ... I'm having absolutely no luck. Something about a brand new SUV, and a baby on the way.

Yeah: THAT old story ;)
Did you convince him about how large of a belt and table the machine should have so you, opps, I mean HE, would be happy with it?:D
Getting people, esp neighbors to buy the right equipment so that EVERYONE who might use it, or borrow it, is a hard thing to get right the first time.......:p

[John Carlo]

I've revised this review as of 1/8/04
My sander arrived with the motor fan cover pushed in and rubbing against the fan. This was easy to remedy with a screwdriver. I'm glad I rotated the motor by hand before plugging it in. The outer cover to the gearbox was also dented. My local dealer immediately offered to repair or replace the sander with a new one. There were also several bolts and even a piece of bearing race found at the bottom of the shipping crate. I opted to keep the one I had because because the tables and fences were ground flat and true and "initial" alignment (see comments further on)was very good. The quality and consistency of the grind and polish was excellent.This is a big and bulky machine and it takes four people to lift it onto its mobile base. I used a Jet adjustable base rated for 1200 pounds. I had to cut a few inches off two of the adjusting bars to compensate for the width of the sander.
Assembly was easy and so was belt adjustment. I walked the belt through several rotations by hand to check tracking. All seemed OK. When I turned the sander on it quickly destroyed the belt. Visual inspection showed the the three bolts I had found at the bottom of the crate were missing from the underside of the sander where they mount the idler drum to the machine. I should have looked it over more carefully. Once installed and readjusted with a new belt installed, the tracking worked perfectly. My dealer sent out his service technician with the replacement parts and a new belt. He assured me that the bearing race and a couple of other metal scraps are not from my sander. My dealer also assures me that as long as they are in business, I will never have to worry about the warranty expiring.
I was initially impressed with the way things line up. As long as the belt is not under tension, the auxiliary table is 90 degrees to the idler drum even when raised all the way up to the auxiliary sanding drums. Under belt tension, the auxiliary table is off by a few degrees. There is no provision to compensate for this. I'll have to rough sand curved surfaces on this machine and do the final sanding on my Grizzly oscillating drum sander. Why would I not want to start out on the Grizzly? There is a certain economy to using the belt as opposed to an expensive sanding sleeve.

There is no oscillating action with the sanding sleeve sanding drums. All oscillation is done with the sanding belt only. The auxiliary sanding table which is made from heavy formed steel is at a true 90 degrees to the main table.
The only other alignment problems that I see come from two areas. First of all, when you release the table locks to slide it in and out to the sanding belt, it is possible to push to table out of alignment. This would not be a problem for normal edge sanding operations but would pose a hassle when using the miter gauge. A remedy is to take two small thin right angle metal brackets and loosely wedge them in place between the table and the belt as you move the table forward. Then set your table locks and you have repeatable accuracy. Don't forget to slide the metal brackets out before turning on the sander!
The other problem comes with the built in detente locking mechanism for 0, 45, and 90 degrees. Dis-assembly revealed a burr on the end of the pin itself which prevented it from smoothly disengaging. It also revealed that the tip of the spring which thrusts the pin forward was lying in the cutaway wherein the pin retracts. I unscrewed the retaining cap on the pin mechanism and rotated the spring so that a flat edge now rested against the pin. This keeps the tip of the spring from jamming in the pin's raceway. It took some careful adjustment to get to detente mechanism to deliver a repeatable 90 degrees. It was worth the effort as it now quickly comes into square.
You can forget about trying to view the indexing scale with the supplied pointer. For my pointer to be anywhere near where it is supposed to be it has to go all the way back against the indexing pin mechanism. Even then, It is impossible to view the scale head on as the motor lies directly in your line of sight. I'm going to epoxy a small mirror to a block of wood with a triangular cross section then epoxy that to the motor mounting plate. That will allow me to view the scale head on even though I'm viewing it at right angles from the front of the sander. It would have been very easy for Delta to do this or for them to have used a prism mounted in a similar way.
This machine delivers excellent results when sanding straight edges and that is what it is all about. I like the way the drum covers latch back out of the way so you can sand boards longer than the table. If I didn't have the Grizzly oscillating spindle sander and if the Powermatic had a longer belt and allowed you to latch back its guards, I'd have bought the Powermatic.

[Van Huskey]

Considering the time an OES and DS save a hobbyist I can't imagine they wouldn't pay for themselves in short order even in a relatively small pro shop, BUT it assumes you do work that they could be used significantly in.