Talking to my drum sander

[Dueane Hicks]

I bought this overly expensive piece of equipment, thinking it was good at sanding. I bought a Supermax 25/50; mostly to sand burls for making small boxes. This darn thing gums up so easily that I have just given up even using it! I use zirconium belts, at 80,100,120 grit. They always gum up with burl, and pretty much anything but poplar and walnut. What a waste money! Now I'm trying to find the secret trick that will clean this junk off the once used sandpaper without taking it off multiple times and scrubbing it with harsh chemicals. Does anyone out there in maddening gum world know how to get this crud off the paper? Those rubber sticks do not work! I am running very light passes and going through as fast as I can.
A couple pics.....

418545418546

[Robert Cherry]

What do you consider a light pass? I limit my material removal to no more than .005 - .010 per pass. I’ve also found that 80 grit seems to be the sweet spot For grit on my machine. . Anything finer and the passes have to be impossibly light. Anything more coarse and the finish takes too long to clean up. I find the rubber eraser belt cleaners work very well.

[Bill Dufour]

How many horsepower is your DC.. Is it at least a 5 inch hose to the sander? that looks like only one dust port smaller then 3 inches. You need two or three 3 inch plus ports use a tee to get there. You might add 3-5 hp of air compressor to run a air arrouser just behind the drum contact. Or probably more efficient to add a regenerative blower.
Bil lD.

[Joe Jensen]

I ran one set of paper, 100 and 150 grit for 2 years and didn't gum up. I have a 5HP dust collector and take no more than .005" per pass. Usually .005". I mostly run oak and walnut. That said, I replaced the paper recent and ran a bit of pine and the new paper gummed up a bit right away. Once in my new space a wide belt machine is high on my list.

[Mel Fulks]

At least one of the supliers of pattern making shops sells a "pitch solvent" that can be used on sand paper.

[Ken Krawford]

I just cleaned a couple belts on my 25/50 sander with Simplegreen and it does a pretty good job. I roll the belt up, place it in a container of full strength Simplegreen and soak it for 24 hrs. I then unroll it and hit it with a nylon brush to loosen up any gunk adhered to the belt and soak it for another 24 hrs. Then rinse with plenty of tap water and dry.

[Pete Staehling]

Not sure what to say. I have a Jet 16-32 that is used every day. I run walnut, cherry, pecan, maple, cypress, pine, cedar, ipe, wenge, koa, mango, and probably some others i am forgetting through it. The belts have been fine. I have stuck with 80 grit belts and they have held up very well with a little touch of the rubber stick now and then. I think they might have even been fine without the rubber stick.

I take light passes, but not crazy light. At times I have been a little impatient and gone a little heavy on the pass and still been okay. Basically it has been pretty forgiving.

I have seen a little burning in spots on the cherry and on the koa if i am not careful, but even then the belt looked okay.

It may help that I generally run only short pieces through it. That may mean that it doesn't have time to heat up as much, I don't know.

I have a 2HP DC hooked up directly to the sander (there is a Y connector and the other side of the Y has a gate that I close when using the sander), so I get pretty hood airflow.

Edit, I should mention I did have much more trouble with belts clogging up on my previous machine, a Jet 10-20. I liked it okay until I had the new machine and realized how much better it worked. Not sure if the difference is airflow or what. I upgraded the DC at the same time, so the clogging may be mostly that. There are a lot of other ways that the new one is MUCH nicer though.

[tom lucas]

that looks like dust consolidation to me. I'd try to improve your vacuum.

[John TenEyck]

Anything with pitch will gum up, so I don't even try anymore.

I found a power washer removes most stuff off gummed up sanding strips.
John

[glenn bradley]

Seems like the response is pretty consistent. Sanding pitching material will leave pitch. I sand some pretty figured materials and have yet to see anything like what you are getting. Is the material coming from a supplier who processes/dries it well? Maybe an alternate supplier?

[mark kosse]

I have a dust collector that hits 500A on start up and I have the same problem op. I think the head spins to fast. Unfortunately for me it's a necessity for the work I do.

[Mike Cutler]

I am running very light passes and going through as fast as I can.



Dueane
I've never found that setting the speed to fast helped with my drum sanders.
My 3HP, 27" dual drum sander takes very light passes,and the speed is definitely not "fast".
Some woods do give me issues, and I have used a rag with acetone in between passes to wipe the board down with some success. Never tried to run burl of any type though.

[Dueane Hicks]

How many horsepower is your DC.. Is it at least a 5 inch hose to the sander? that looks like only one dust port smaller then 3 inches. You need two or three 3 inch plus ports use a tee to get there. You might add 3-5 hp of air compressor to run a air arrouser just behind the drum contact. Or probably more efficient to add a regenerative blower.
Bil lD.


Its a 1200 cfm 4"; I think the problem might be the type of wood I'm running through it.

[Dueane Hicks]

I guess I'll chock it up to sticky wood species. It was a large box of silver maple burls, all about an inch thick. I don't seem to have this trouble with other woods like mahogany or oak. I'm not impressed with the paper I got either.

[Bill Dufour]

The drum to the right shows the dust flow is not enough about one pipe diameter from the center dust port there starts to be loose dust stuck to the drum clear to the ends. Bu then that theory falls apart on the left hand drum.
Bill D.

[Jim Becker]

Its a 1200 cfm 4"; I think the problem might be the type of wood I'm running through it.

The maximum amount of air flow you can physically fit in a 4" duct is only 400-500 CFM at the given air velocity produced by most DC blowers. It doesn't matter what the DC is rated (real or imagined)...it's about what can actually flow through the duct work. I agree that air flow may be contributing to the issue you illustrate in your photo...it's somewhat common on drum sanders, unfortunately, because manufacturers design the dust collection based on what many folks have available rather than what's actually needed...which is a huge amount of air flow to cover the needs of the tool.

[Stewart Lang]

Dueane,

First off, convert your steel drum to hook and loop. You can buy velcro from suppliers online. The small amount of cushion makes a HUGE difference in eliminating heat and gumming. I'd honestly never bother even using a drum sander with a standard steel drum. Once you put H&L on it, it becomes a whole different machine.

Second, you can certainly use standard sandpaper, but if you want to go higher than 120, use Abranet rolls. I can go up to 240 sanding hard maple taking a heavy pass, and not worry at all about build up on my twin drum 25".

Third, if you need to clean your belts, use a mix of 1 part simple green (I use the heavy duty concentrate) to 16 parts water. Spray it on your rolls (after they're off the machine), let it sit for about 3-5 minutes, and everything just falls off. I use it on all my sandpaper stuff.

[Pete Staehling]

First off, convert your steel drum to hook and loop. You can buy velcro from suppliers online. The small amount of cushion makes a HUGE difference in eliminating heat and gumming. I'd honestly never bother even using a drum sander with a standard steel drum. Once you put H&L on it, it becomes a whole different machine.

I have a question about that approach. Would it limit the ability to make very thin veneers with the sander? If I remember correctly the sanders that used abrasive feeder belts belts were rated at being less able to run thin stock than ones with rubber feeder belts. My assumption was that is due to the give in the feeder belt. I'd expect a similar limitation with the velcro conversion on the drum. Can anyone confirm or correct my thinking on that?

For my particular usage a lot of the work is making pieces that are pretty thin (most often around 0.090", but sometimes thicker or thinner).

I have a Jet 10-20 sitting unused that could be put into use for fine sanding and could imagine using a hook and loop setup for a light pass with a fine grit after the pieces are already about the correct thickness. I'd probably leave 80 grit on the Jet 16-32 and something finer on the 10-20 possibly even maybe changing grits on the 10-20 assuming that would be pretty quick and easy with hook and loop (I always found changing belts to be a pain on the standard setup of the 10-20).

[Dueane Hicks]

I am going to try a 5" hose with a 4" adapter on the machine.

[Doug Dawson]

I bought this overly expensive piece of equipment, thinking it was good at sanding. I bought a Supermax 25/50; mostly to sand burls for making small boxes. This darn thing gums up so easily that I have just given up even using it! I use zirconium belts, at 80,100,120 grit. They always gum up with burl, and pretty much anything but poplar and walnut. What a waste money! Now I'm trying to find the secret trick that will clean this junk off the once used sandpaper without taking it off multiple times and scrubbing it with harsh chemicals. Does anyone out there in maddening gum world know how to get this crud off the paper? Those rubber sticks do not work! I am running very light passes and going through as fast as I can.
A couple pics.....

418545418546

Looks like you are using crap sandpaper.

[Stewart Lang]

I have a question about that approach. Would it limit the ability to make very thin veneers with the sander? If I remember correctly the sanders that used abrasive feeder belts belts were rated at being less able to run thin stock than ones with rubber feeder belts. My assumption was that is due to the give in the feeder belt. I'd expect a similar limitation with the velcro conversion on the drum. Can anyone confirm or correct my thinking on that?

For my particular usage a lot of the work is making pieces that are pretty thin (most often around 0.090", but sometimes thicker or thinner).

I have a Jet 10-20 sitting unused that could be put into use for fine sanding and could imagine using a hook and loop setup for a light pass with a fine grit after the pieces are already about the correct thickness. I'd probably leave 80 grit on the Jet 16-32 and something finer on the 10-20 possibly even maybe changing grits on the 10-20 assuming that would be pretty quick and easy with hook and loop (I always found changing belts to be a pain on the standard setup of the 10-20).

Pete,

I've ran veneers through mine (which has H&L) just fine. The H&L doesn't start to compress unless you take a very heavy pass, and even then I think the compression is relatively small. Just enough to allow the sandpaper from being completely smashed between a rock and a hard place, figuratively, as is the case with regular steel drums. In addition I think the rotational force the spinning drum helps to negate any compression. The H&L provides a little air pocket between the sandpaper and drum, which helps reduce heat too. Take light passes if you're worried about it, you'll be fine. But converting to H&L is absolutely worth it.

[Jeff Clode]

Dueane,

First off, convert your steel drum to hook and loop. You can buy velcro from suppliers online. The small amount of cushion makes a HUGE difference in eliminating heat and gumming. I'd honestly never bother even using a drum sander with a standard steel drum. Once you put H&L on it, it becomes a whole different machine.

Second, you can certainly use standard sandpaper, but if you want to go higher than 120, use Abranet rolls. I can go up to 240 sanding hard maple taking a heavy pass, and not worry at all about build up on my twin drum 25".

Third, if you need to clean your belts, use a mix of 1 part simple green (I use the heavy duty concentrate) to 16 parts water. Spray it on your rolls (after they're off the machine), let it sit for about 3-5 minutes, and everything just falls off. I use it on all my sandpaper stuff.

Stewart - I am intrigued by this hook and loop approach. Could you please elaborate a bit on how you did this? Assume PSA backed H&L in sheets? Did you find a particular brand or thickness of it and sandpaper to be most effective?
Thanks in advance
Jeff

[John Lanciani]

Dueane,

First off, convert your steel drum to hook and loop. You can buy velcro from suppliers online. The small amount of cushion makes a HUGE difference in eliminating heat and gumming. I'd honestly never bother even using a drum sander with a standard steel drum. Once you put H&L on it, it becomes a whole different machine.

Second, you can certainly use standard sandpaper, but if you want to go higher than 120, use Abranet rolls. I can go up to 240 sanding hard maple taking a heavy pass, and not worry at all about build up on my twin drum 25".

Third, if you need to clean your belts, use a mix of 1 part simple green (I use the heavy duty concentrate) to 16 parts water. Spray it on your rolls (after they're off the machine), let it sit for about 3-5 minutes, and everything just falls off. I use it on all my sandpaper stuff.

The drums on almost every sander that I have seen (Performax, Delta, General International, Steel City, Ryobi, etc) are extruded hollow aluminum, not steel. By design they are almost perfect heat sinks and work very effectively to keep the paper cool. My biggest use of the sander is bringing stock, especially shop sawn veneer, to precise flatness and thickness quickly; putting Velcro on the drums would only serve to slow me down and round over the edges of my stock - no thanks.

[Cary Falk]

Doesn't hook an loop conversion require you to tape the ends of the roller? If that is the case you loose the advantage of a open end drum sander.

[Dueane Hicks]

Looks like you are using crap sandpaper.


zirconium sandpaper is not crap. not at 60.00 a roll. supposed to last a bit longer than the red stuff.

[Doug Dawson]

zirconium sandpaper is not crap. not at 60.00 a roll. supposed to last a bit longer than the red stuff.

Apparently not! I use the OEM sandpaper rolls in my 25/50, and I've never seen anything like what you're experiencing.

[Stewart Lang]

Stewart - I am intrigued by this hook and loop approach. Could you please elaborate a bit on how you did this? Assume PSA backed H&L in sheets? Did you find a particular brand or thickness of it and sandpaper to be most effective?
Thanks in advance
Jeff

Jeff, some companies like Grizzly sell a retrofit kit for their sanders. It's just a long roll of adhesive backed H&L. I bought a 100' roll of HookandLoop.com, since they're only about an hour from me. Obviously the higher quality stuff you buy, the better. I think I just bought their Duragrip with acrylic adhesive, since it's more resistant to heat than their rubber adhesive. I've had it on for years and it still grips very well. You can use whatever sandpaper you like, as long as it's H&L backed.

[Stewart Lang]

The drums on almost every sander that I have seen (Performax, Delta, General International, Steel City, Ryobi, etc) are extruded hollow aluminum, not steel. By design they are almost perfect heat sinks and work very effectively to keep the paper cool. My biggest use of the sander is bringing stock, especially shop sawn veneer, to precise flatness and thickness quickly; putting Velcro on the drums would only serve to slow me down and round over the edges of my stock - no thanks.

John, you're correct. Mine are aluminium as well. Not sure why I was thinking steel. They do work well as heat sinks, and that's definitely in their design. The H&L just further helps reduce the heat, that's all. Less heat's always better. My drum sander is used largely for flattening solid wood glue-ups, so the H&L is advantageous for me. There isn't much rounding over on the edges, even with H&L. If your drum sander works well for your uses, then don't fix if it ain't broke. That's what I always say lol.

[Stewart Lang]

Doesn't hook an loop conversion require you to tape the ends of the roller? If that is the case you loose the advantage of a open end drum sander.

Cary, only the side that gets layed with the rotation of the drum, as it's going to want to fly off. The other side gets pressed down with the rotation, so tape isn't necessary. If you cut your sandpaper right, you can use H&L with an open-ended drum sander.

[Cary Falk]

Cary, only the side that gets layed with the rotation of the drum, as it's going to want to fly off. The other side gets pressed down with the rotation, so tape isn't necessary. If you cut your sandpaper right, you can use H&L with an open-ended drum sander.

I figure that but the place I worked at as a kid had a dual drum sander and they taped both ends.

[Edward Dyas]

I bought this overly expensive piece of equipment, thinking it was good at sanding. I bought a Supermax 25/50; mostly to sand burls for making small boxes. This darn thing gums up so easily that I have just given up even using it! I use zirconium belts, at 80,100,120 grit. They always gum up with burl, and pretty much anything but poplar and walnut. What a waste money! Now I'm trying to find the secret trick that will clean this junk off the once used sandpaper without taking it off multiple times and scrubbing it with harsh chemicals. Does anyone out there in maddening gum world know how to get this crud off the paper? Those rubber sticks do not work! I am running very light passes and going through as fast as I can.
A couple pics.....

418545418546I think it gumming up has more to do with the type wood and the type paper on the sander you are using. You may have better luck with a different brand of paper especially if it is rosin coated. Still, a drum sander is more likely to gum up than a belt sander. I've run heavy industrial drum sanders large enough to run a house door through and they would sometimes gum up the paper especially on pine doors.

[Pete Staehling]

I've ran veneers through mine (which has H&L) just fine.
Good to know. Just to clarify though. When you say you ran veneers through, do you mean actually re-sawing and making veneers where the re-sawed stuff might need a good bit of thicknessing or just running veneers through that are already pretty much smooth and close to the right thickness?

[John Sincerbeaux]

The OP’s frustration with his drum sander is unfortunately all too common. I have said this many times.... small drum sanders are a flawed design. Guys always jump on this saying the operator is flawed? But every month on every WW forum, there are guys posting the exact thing. Sure there are guys getting “acceptable” results but everyone has a wide definition of acceptable performance. If you have to glue velcro all over your drum to get acceptable performance, then that seems to prove the original design is flawed.
Weather the drum is steel or aluminum really doesn't matter. Again the problem is the sandpaper over heats cuz it is in constant contact with the drum and is almost constantly in contact with the wood causing heat. The paper has no place or time to cool. If aluminum was superior to steel then Wide Belt sanders would not be using steel. The manufacturer, WoodMaster uses Steel drums citing superior cooling( checkout their website).
High-end drum sanders, like Wide Belt sanders use steel drums covered with rubber.
I think its great that there are guys that are happy with drum sanders. But I also know there are many Woodworkers including myself who went through a lot of disappointment and wasted money before they gave up and sold their drum sander for pennies on the dollar.

[Steve Demuth]

I use a Delta 18-36 drum sander, which I hate for a wide range of reasons. As others have said, they are compromised machines by the nature of their design, and the Delta especially so.

That said, I have one, and use it. I also have inadequate dust removal, but have found that spraying the sandpaper with teflon regularly helps enormously with dust release, so my under powered removal system can grab it. This reduces sandpaper loading, and burning.

But after I retire and have time to actually fix things in my shop, the Delta will be free to anyone who wants to mess with it, and replaced with a wide belt, with adequate dust removal.

[Zachary Hoyt]

For what I do, building banjos, guitars, fiddles and such, the SuperMax 19-38 has been a huge improvement. I bought mine 18 months ago, and now that I have had one I wouldn't want to be without it for the work I do. For furniture work where the pieces are much bigger and there are more of them I can easily see that it would be too slow to be productive, but for what I do it works great. I use only 80 grit for instrument work, my need is to make things very flat and consistent in thickness and it's great for that. I used to use a planer to make guitar sides and backs and half of the pieces would be torn up by the planer before they got thin enough, more if I wasn't careful about grain direction. Now i have no snipe and no tearout, and I am willing to take a little more time to accomplish that. I use the paper directly on the drum and get pretty good life, it will eventually load up and burn the wood but that's usually a sign that it's time for new paper. I bought a big roll and cut my own pieces to size, it's much cheaper that way. I have a Reliant dust collector with a 4" hose, it gets some of the dust but some falls down on to the conveyor and then falls off the back, and I vacuum it from time to time. I know a guy who is a professional cutting board maker and was disappointed when he bought a drum sander, before I had mine, because it was too slow. To get the value of finished product that he needed through his machine took a lot more time than it takes me to sand the same value of product through mine.

[Jim Becker]

Zachary, I'm glad you've had a good experience with the SuperMax 19-38 as I'm about to have one in my shop (pre-owned but very nice) for essentially the same thing you are using yours for.

[Marc Jeske]

A different angle of thought...

If a board is Kiln dried to a high enough temp, the pitch becomes "set"

AFAIK in general terms anyway.

I learned this working w SY Pine boards w hand RO sanders.

Would that "set" board reduce the paper loading problem ?

I dunno, just throwing this out there to those that may know about this.

Marc

[Marc Jeske]

Quote I found -

I don't know how it applies to other wood species -

"From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
You need to specify that the belts are "open coat", and you need to make sure that the pine has had the “pitch set” during drying."

Marc

[Zachary Hoyt]

Zachary, I'm glad you've had a good experience with the SuperMax 19-38 as I'm about to have one in my shop (pre-owned but very nice) for essentially the same thing you are using yours for.
I hope you'll like yours. I use mine even more than I thought I would before I bought it. For instance I cut pieces of brass dowel to use as fretboard dots and after I drill the holes and glue the dots in I run the boards through the sander again to sand the brass down level with the board. It's nice also to be able to flatten small resawn pieces like headstock overlays and fiddle sides. I'll look forward to hearing how it works for you.
Zach

[Jim Becker]

Thanks, Zach...I do expect it to be a useful tool...this time around. I bought a similar unit years ago but it went largely unused because of what I was making at that point in time, taking up a lot of space, etc. So I sold it to another 'Creeker and moved on. My needs have changed. While I can take big things to Bucks County Hardwoods for sanding, I've acquired a lot of interesting thin stock recently and cannot process it to uniform thickness with my planer without a high percentage of "destruction". This solves that plus will add a service I can offer to some of my CNC work clients. (I will not be able to use it for fretboards the way you do because I pre-radius them on the CNC, but that's a great idea for dealing with the brass inlays!)

[Dueane Hicks]

I should have bought a wide belt sander used instead of this thing. It is useful for several things I've had to sand (home made veneer) and leveling boxes after cutting the lids off.

[Daniel Dioguardi]

Just feel like throwing in my two cents here.. I’ve got the SuperMax 18/36 and it started as a love/hate relationship. I gummed up a lot of sandpaper (never thought about SimpleGreen to refurbish it!!) and was second guessing my ability to use the tool correctly. My big improvements came when I centralized/upgraded my dust collection runs, started taking smaller passes, and slowed down to let the sandpaper cool off during long stretches of use. I also am sure to use different parts of the roll when working on narrow stock, which helps keep things from heating up in one spot too fast. I can go quite a while before the first pitch spot appears, and now that I know I can salvage a roll with SimpleGreen, I’m really thinking the tool was a home run buy. For a hobbyist like me, it’s truly a Ferrari.. or whatever is really good now... I drive a Toyota so what do I know about Ferraris.

[roger wiegand]

I'm another happy Supermax 19-38 user. I use it on cherry, maple and walnut almost exclusively, 80 grit almost exclusively. There are things about it that are irritating-- like the paper clamp on the right side that's impossible to reach, but it does what I need-- final thicknessing of thin stock and dealing with highly figured woods prone to tearout. I have occasionally wrecked a belt by taking too aggressive a cut, but overall it's been a real nice addition to the shop. I used to use it to clean up the surface left by my planer, but with my new J/P that appears to be a much-diminished task-- I can go straight to a smoothing plane off the power planer.

[Jim Becker]

I learned the "be careful of the bite" thing the hard way last week, Rodger, with my 19-38...it was accidental, but still...

[Eric D Matson]

I have found these cleaning sticks to do a pretty good job of cleaning gummed up paper while it is still on my machine.

https://www.amazon.com/Prostik-W1307-12-Inch-Abrasive-Cleaner/dp/B0000DD0L1/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=sandpaper+cleaning+stick&qid=1574356622&sr=8-5

[Jim Becker]

They do work reasonably well, Eric, and I've kept one around for a long time for my sanders. They don't, however, clear truly gunked up material that can often be dislodged with SimpleGreen, etc., as some folks have note. I've come to realize very quickly that we can be our own worst enemies by taking more of a bite than we probably should as I noted in my previous response and that can contribute to some really hard to remove debris in the abrasive...it's pretty much "baked on" from heat that comes from excessive friction.