Shop Fox 18" Open-End Drum Sander

[George Lundy]

Does anyone have experience with a Shop Fox 18" Open-End Drum Sander with variable speed feed? I am looking at buying one of these for my shop. Any thoughts to share (good or bad) on the merits of making this purchase? I don't have the money or space for a huge sander.

[Matt Day]

I had the Craftsman version of it and didn’t like it. Maybe I expected too much, but the nature of the cantilevered sanders allows for flexing which in turns makes it difficult to dial in and get a flat board out of the machine. It ruined more boards than it helped reduce sanding. Give me a Rotex or similar any day. If I ever buy a drum sander it won’t be open ended.

[George Lundy]

What I am trying to accomplish is to build blocks of five boards face-glued together so I have a solid block about 10"x6"x5" which I will then band saw into "jewelry" boxes with drawers. So I'm trying to make flat boards that will face glue together well. I gather from your comment (thank you) that if I run the boards through my jointer/surface planer, and then sand them with a Rotex sander, that would work better than running them through a drum sander. If I buy a Rotex Sander, do I also need to get get a Festool dust collector or can I use a shop vac? The cost of both would be about the same as buying a drum sander.

[Matt Day]

You don’t need a rotex to do that (or a drum sander), any ROS will do. The Rotex (or Bosch equivalent) just hogs off material faster. A $40 sander from any big box store will work for you, though i suggest not buying big box store sandpaper. Get Norton or Mirka or something.

And you don’t need a Festool dust extractor to use Festool tools. They are a nice pairing but any old shop vac will work as long as you have the right hose or adapter. The Bosch VAC005 is a good cheap hose.

And just a safety note, a good rule of thumb is anything 12” or less shouldn’t go through your jointer/planer. 10” might work but make sure to use push blocks on the jointer and make sure that the board spans the distance between your infeed and outfeed rollers on the planer.

[Bert McMahan]

I have a piece of laminated MDF (the white stuff from Home Depot/Lowes) that I use as a sled in my planer to run short pieces through. Double sticky tape the short pieces to the MDF and push the whole thing through. It works well but you want to have multiple short pieces so it acts as one "long" piece. If you're only doing a single short piece, you'll need to make up a second sacrificial piece to get you up to the 12" or so Matt suggested.

George, it doesn't sound like you're looking for perfectly parallel boards, just smooth, so you might want to look at something like a Flatmaster if you don't want to use a ROS. (I couldn't tell from your comment if you're already planing them to thickness or if you wanted to use the drumsander to thickness)

[Andrew More]

Depending on your thickness planer, you might be happy with the surface finish out of the planer. If you're not, a light touch with a ROS is going to be enough.

[George Lundy]

Thanks to all. I have an Inca jointer/planer (which I would like to sell) and also a Delta thickness planer. I will be feeding 4-6 foot boards through and then cutting them to size before gluing them up.Just got the boards yesterday. Mesquite, Hickory and cherry. All 4/4. Will surface them to 7/8" and then touch them up with ROS or Makita palm sander if necessary. Will see how it goes. Thanks for all the good counsel.

[Paul F Franklin]

If your Delta snipes a bit at the ends, you should probably plan on cutting off and discarding a couple of inches at each end so the parts you glue up are of uniform thickness.