Delta 18-36 Drum Sander

[Jenny Trice]

I have a Delta 18-36 drum sander that I am the second owner of. The gear motor that drives the belt that moves the parts under the drum failed and I got a new one ($200). Upon putting the new one on, I sent one board through and on about the fourth pass, the belt quit moving again. The sander bogged down and appeared to take a deeper cut than it should have at the same time the gear motor stopped working. I pulled the gear motor off and found the shaft ceized. I cannot move it and am not sure if I should be able to, but I think I should be able to rotate the shaft (?). I'm a very unhappy camper at this point and unsure whether to invest any more into this tool. Price per board sanded has been extremely steep! I am not trying to take to much in a cut, I have a planer for that, and am not trying to do very wide boards. The board that I was putting through when it quit was mayb 8 inches wide and had already been planed to a constant thickness.

There is a Delta authorized repair shop in the area but I'm betting that is going to be an expensive proposition, if they can even do anything. Delta wanted $367 for the gear motor but I was able to get one through Grainger for $200. I could try to tear the whole thing apart but frankly, I would rather be doing woodworking than machine repair/rebuilding.

Just wondering if anyone here has tried to repair one of these machines and also if the members here think this would be a worthwhile exercise. I have about $600 invested and currently have a $200 motor that I think is toasted, again.

What do you think?

[Kevin Presutti]

I am sorry to hear about your sander, I have been looking for a nice Performax for a while but not much luck. Anyway when I was thinking of what manufacturer to purchase I had seen a Delta on CL not far from my home. Not sure of the exact model but i looked up several reviews and none of them were flattering. That is when I started looking for a Performax. You may want to look up the reviews for your sander to see if this is a problem for Delta. I veered away because I assume they are all similarly built which can mean trouble just by the inherent nature of the design, quality of parts, manufacturing processes, etc. at certian price points.

[Charles Lent]

I don't own or have ever used one of these sanders, so I am making a few assumptions here, but I know motors.

The motor that moves the belt has a gear box on the end of the motor and the shaft that drives the belt comes out of this gearbox at 90 degrees to the motor shaft. If I'm right you will not be able to rotate the output shaft of the motor by hand because the gearing inside the gear box is a "worm drive" design (see Wikipedia). If the opposite end of the motor has a shaft coming out of it you should be able to rotate this shaft with your fingers and after many full rotations, begin to see movement of the gear box shaft. If you can do this, the mechanical parts of the motor are OK. If the motor has no shaft on the back end you will only be able to move it with electrical power.

Now on to the electrical. We will need to know the motor nameplate ratings for voltage and amperage, also if it is AC or DC, and the horsepower rating. Is it the same horsepower as the original motor? Is it the same horsepower as the manual shows in the parts list?. Does it have the same gearbox ratio? The goal here is to me able to provide it with the correct voltage and current on the bench to check it's operation and to make certain that the correct size motor and gearbox has been used based on Delta's original design intent. I have repaired a lot of failed equipment that had supposedly been repaired before me where they used incorrect replacements. Let's just make sure that it's the correct size and ratings for this application. A heavy load is placed on this motor while feeding stock through the sander and an undersized or incorrect gear ratio motor would surely cause the motor to fail. The replacement should be equal to or slightly larger than the original and have the same gear ratio.

Charley