Drum Sander (v-drum kit)

[Art Mulder]

Over on another forum I came across a discussion on drum sanders. (Like the Delta 31-255X) Now I've looked at these, but I find them pretty expensive. They're just about as complex as a planer, yet double the price?

Anyway, at all the ww'ing shows that I visit, I usually see these guys advertising a surface drum sander kit. Like one of these: nicks.ca -- sander kit (http://www.nicks.ca/Toolkits.html#sander1)

Anyone have experience with these? What do people think of them? What is the advantange of the comercial drum sanders over things like this? The commercial sanders give you a power feed, and they should keep things parallel. What else?

Curious,
...art

(edited to change the subject to match the most popular kit, from Stockroomsupply.com (http://www.stockroomsupply.com/V_Drum_Sander.php))

[Jody Malinich]

We purchased a sand-flee a couple years ago. Basically the same kinda a sander that the kit will make. Does great for small work. But using full width boards it is easy to get a shallow ditch if you stop or jerk as you are running the board across. If all you do is small items they can't be beat. We actually have ours set with two different grits so we can remove saw marks on one side and finish sand on the other.

[Neil Lamens]

Hi Art:

Just quickly........I'm thinking the commercial machine will give you more torque, better adjustments, and a warranty????

Hope all's well with you today......Neil

Edit.....Isn't this just like a stroke-sander in a way????

[Eddie Darby]

Hi
I've seen this unit working at the Wood Shows several times. It'a called The V-Drum Sander. An article for it appeared in the American Woodworker magazine May 2003 issue #100 "Shop Made Drum Sander" page 40.
Here is the page from the original inventor, Paul Moore.

http://www.stockroomsupply.com/

This unit is great!
No Noise to speak of,
No Dust to speak of, thus No Vacuum needed!!!
No Burning to speak of, and
No Vibration to speak of. Paul sells 2 balanced pulleys with his kit and Link Belt.
Yes you can get a bump dug in if you stop in one place for a long time or jerked it around ....but why would you do that??????
Big companies use this unit!

The new site is missing some of these links now, so I will list them all. The inventor is now selling a DVD on building this unit, so I guess he dropped the free plans.

http://www.stockroomsupply.com/Sanding_Info.php

http://www.stockroomsupply.com/Drum_Sander_Plans.php

http://www.onlinewoodshow.com/demos/stockroomsupply/

This unit made it onto a T.V. show on HGTV called "In the WorkShop" with host John Silloats. They made a floor standing model. It's the first plan listed.

[Art Mulder]

Thanks for the links, Eddie, that was the place I was thinking of.

As I ponder these sanders, so far I've identified a handful of points of difference between things like the stockroomsupply.com v-drum kit, and units like the Delta 31-255x

Pro V-Drum:
- one quarter of the price, or thereabouts. Maybe less.
- much smaller/portable (I have a fairly full, smaller shop)
- can do odd-shaped pieces and completed projects
(ie: sand the edge of a completed box, set up a fence and "joint" the edge of a tall board) The overhead drum units can just do flatwork.

Pro overhead Drum Sander like Delta 31-255x:
- power feed
- can surface longer boards than the v-drum (v-drum can do 3' or less, from what I've heard.)
- can thickness lumber (ie: maintain parallel sides)
This is a very big point, I think.
- don't need to spend time building the tool.
(the v-drum is a kit and you need to find your own motor)

Anything else?

Well it does at least give me something to check into at the Woodstock Woodshow (http://www.woodstockwoodshow.ca/) in two weeks :rolleyes:.

best,
...art

[Frank Pellow]

Art, I have seen and used this sander at three different woodworking shows and was impressed. I purchased a kit almost three years ago but am ashamed to admit that I have yet to build it.:o Maybe this winter?

[Art Mulder]

I purchased a kit almost three years ago but am ashamed to admit that I have yet to build it.

Well, shoot, Frank! After I started this thread I found your posting in the archives from 2004 about this kit. I was figuring you'd step in with some advice, but not this! :eek:

I guess you were busy building a shop at the time... :rolleyes:

Price has gone up a bit since then, though.

[Eddie Darby]

"Well it does at least give me something to check into at the Woodstock Woodshow (http://www.woodstockwoodshow.ca/) in two weeks :rolleyes:."

------------

Ask at the Woodstock Woodshow if the V-Drum sander can handle 3 foot or longer boards, and have a 5 or so foot piece of wood in your car.

Ask about leaving the wood in one spot too long...

Ask about maintaining even thickness. How fast can it remove wood and how much in one pass. Can you start in the middle of a board to induce/remove a taper?

Ask Paul how long it took him to build his first proto-type....not as long as it would take most to read/scan the instructions of a power sander.

Ask how long it takes to change sandpaper, or if you can put 2 different grits of sandpaper on the same drum with the others models, now that saves alot of time!

As for motors, usually the problem I have with them is; what to with them, I have 4 right now waiting to be used. :rolleyes:

Ask Paul Moore if he sells motors, I know he did a while back. PrincessAuto usually has a sale on motors every flyer, so it's just a case of getting the right HP and RPM motor on sale. At their web-site you can download their flyer in PDF form. They have 4 stores west of Toronto, Hamilton, London, Kitchener, and Mississauga.

http://www.princessauto.com/

I think you will be surprised by all the answers, and then you can report back your findings.

[Frank Pellow]

Well, shoot, Frank! After I started this thread I found your posting in the archives from 2004 about this kit. I was figuring you'd step in with some advice, but not this! :eek:

I guess you were busy building a shop at the time... :rolleyes:

Price has gone up a bit since then, though.
Yes, at the time I was building my shop. But, I am not building it now, so I can no longer use that as an excuse. :o

[Art Mulder]

Ask at the Woodstock Woodshow if the V-Drum sander can handle 3 foot or longer boards, ....
Ask about leaving the wood in one spot too long...
Ask about maintaining even thickness. How fast can it remove wood and how much in one pass. Can you start in the middle of a board to induce/remove a taper?

Eddie... Those are all good questions, and I've taken note to ask some of them.

I thought you were in favour of this tool, but those are pretty hard questions that you're asking? For one thing, I thought that long boards were pretty much out of the question for this tool.

[Eddie Darby]

I think you will be surprised by the answers! The answers to these questions will be positive! There are also hold-downs that you can see demonstrated.
If you want to do longer stock then just make a bigger table top for stability. The first web page that you listed shows at the bottom of the page a folding table top that allows you to handle longer stock.
I would hang around Paul Moore's booth for quite a while, you won't be sorry. This guy knows a lot of great things about sanding.

[Jesse Cloud]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but this might be relevant to Art's decision...

I'm taking a woodworking class at a local community college and they have a 32 inch performax sander. The person who maintains the machines is working on this one all the time, says the adjustments are real finicky.

Is this true in a home shop or is it just from all us untutored wannabees messing up the school's machine?

[Wm Myers]

I just got done building the one that was in shop notes (jan?) a while back. I've been real happy with it and it wasn't that hard to build though it was challenging. You make the drum yourself from MDF discs glued together on a steel rod. I used a drill press, a bandsaw, and of course a table to build it. All together it costs about $170 to build including another motor for it. The one in Shopnotes was powered from your TS.

It works very well and a valued addition to my humble little shop of horror..


http://billswood.blogspot.com/


Bill

[Robert Mickley]

Home built doesn't mean you need to go the route of the sand flea.

I'll be back with the picks in a little bit, lets jsut pray the camera works ok.

I drug home a homemade drum sander today. Over head style, power feed. adjustable table. Closed end. Right now its got some 120 grit on it but I've had this picec of glued up curley beech thats been mocking me for years. It made short work out of cleaning up the joints and making it flat..

I'll be back in a bit, if dinner doesn't get in my way :D

I must really like you guys I can smell dinner and I'm in here posting pics.
Sander has two motors, one for the drum and one to run the two feed rollers.
It needs a crank, and flip up infeed and outfeed tables for longer stock
I'm not gonna tell you what it didn't cost me
Drive motor is 5hp 220. It's probably overkill and the drum is 36 inches wide. I forgot the chute that goes over the top but its easy enough to go back and get