If you could only have one... 20" planer or 26" dual drum sander?

[Ryan Kolarik]

If you had to choose one or the other which would it be? and why? If you have both, do you find one gets a lot more use than the other? I can't afford both at the same time, so I'll have to get one and then the other at a later time. I'm kind of thinking I should get the planer first, but want to get an experienced community's opinion as well. I know another option is to get smaller units of both items, but I just like big machines and would like to go for the gusto right of the bat if I can get by with just one.

[Dan Drager]

If you have no planer at all right now, get the planer. The drum sander is handy as all get out and saves me much time, but it is NOT a planer.

[Stuart Johnson]

You might want to consider a Woodmaster planer with a drum sanding head. Their site is http://woodmastertools.com/S/index.cfm . I have the 26" drum sander and it is built like a tank.

[Montgomery Scott]

A drum sander is a luxury while a planer is more a necessity. If you can swing a Woodmater 718 or 725 that would be an ideal solution.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Get a 12" planer and the sander.

Once you own a good drum sander you will see it as a necessity.

[Joe Jensen]

Been doing this hbby for 30 years and the drum sanders still stump me. I totally understand commercial shops doiing glue ups without planing the wood first, and then running them through a wide belt sander to flatten. From what I've read here, it seems like a drum sander would take 20 or more passes to do the same thing?

I plane every board. Boards are the same thickness where need be, and the finish out of the planer with Byrd head is good enough that I only need to start with 120 grit RO.

I'm not trying to start a war, just want to understand better. I keep lusting after the PM 24" dual drum, but I just don't have the space. Really wish I had one for the run of 8 jewelry boses I built as there was around 400 dividers parts to sand alone.

1) How controllable is the thickness with a drum sander? With the planer, there is a pressure bar to hold the wood down on the table but with sanders, there is just the drum.
2) If the wood is softer or harder does it change how much is removed with each pass? Do you use a micrometer a lot to get the wood to the final thickness?
3) Are you sanding everything with the drum sander? I haven't seen the need coming off my planer.
4) If you weren't using it to level glueups, would you still use one? I really haven't needed straight line 120 or lower sanding, and I haven't used my belt sander in like 10 years. How high can you go on grit?
5) I think what I really need is a belt feed orbital sander that could start with 120 grit and remove the minor planer marks. Is the drum sander useful for that purpose?

For the jewelry boxes I would have wanted to sand parts as small as 1" wide, 7" long, and 1/4" thick. Would this work in a double drum sander?

thanks...joe

[Phil Clark]

I have the original Taiwan 16" planer and never needed to go wider in over 20 years. I also have the 25" double drum sander and wonder why I didn't get long ago. There are many boards (even common species) that tear out in the planer (even with very sharp cutter). I plane to about 1/16 over thickness and finish in the drum sander - a huge difference ain results, expecially with no tearout. I do a lot of frame and panel work and the drum sander is great for panels. As to grit sizes, I've learned from the commercial guys to bring my grits down to 100 and 120. When I'm prepiing for finishing I go to r/o sanders and 180 - 220 depending on wood. As to hardwood/softwood, softwood behaves the same way with a drum sander as it does with any sanding - it is what it is.

I'm with the suggestion that a 12" planer will do the job for most hobbyists and the addition of a drum sander sooner would greatly enhance your work.

[Rod Sheridan]

In my opinion, get the planer first, the sander later if you want.

Having flat, straight stock of uniform dimension is the beginning of most solid wood furniture construction, so the jointer and planer are a required team.

A 20 inch planer is a large planer, nice to have if you also have a wide jointer.

I have a 15 inch planer, which I have always found to be large enough for the work I do, you may need a wider machine. I don't plane glued up panels, I use a cabinet scraper or a scraping plane, so anything wider than my jointer isn't required for the work I do.

Regards, Rod.

[Mike Cutler]

Planer 1st.

There are a lot of ways to "skin the cat" sanding. Only one machine does what a planer does.
In all honesty, the sander is of more benefit when used in conjunction with the planer. Even though I have both, and have been using the sander a lot lately, I would keep the planer over the sander if it came down to having to choose.
The Woodmaster looks like a nice compromise though.

[J.R. Rutter]

I'll take a shot at this. I've owned a Perfomax 22/44 that I used very hard, and currently run a 37" double drum Extrema every day.


1) How controllable is the thickness with a drum sander? With the planer, there is a pressure bar to hold the wood down on the table but with sanders, there is just the drum.
2) If the wood is softer or harder does it change how much is removed with each pass? Do you use a micrometer a lot to get the wood to the final thickness?
3) Are you sanding everything with the drum sander? I haven't seen the need coming off my planer.
4) If you weren't using it to level glueups, would you still use one? I really haven't needed straight line 120 or lower sanding, and I haven't used my belt sander in like 10 years. How high can you go on grit?
5) I think what I really need is a belt feed orbital sander that could start with 120 grit and remove the minor planer marks. Is the drum sander useful for that purpose?
6) For the jewelry boxes I would have wanted to sand parts as small as 1" wide, 7" long, and 1/4" thick. Would this work in a double drum sander?

thanks...joe

1) Depends somewhat on the model. Drum sanders are prone to snipe because of the lack of chipbreaker and pressure bar, especially in thin stock. The Performax type with tiny little rollers right next to the drum does a pretty decent job most of the time (How's that for an endorsement!?)
2) Wood type and hardness does play a role, but proper grit and speed selection give consistent results. Once that is figured out, the micrometer can take a rest.
3) I'm not, just panels, flat assemblies like doors, and woods that would be marginal in the planer.
4) I see it as a luxury unless you need it for the things in #3 above. You can go to 220 if you really want to, but the wraps load up fast. I run 120 / 180 in mine, and the second drum is rubber coated for some slight cushioning.
5) Woodmaster used to sell a Rube Goldberg thingamajig that had a bunch of ROS held above the feed belt. I haven't seen it advertised for years. Looked like a nightmare to set up and maintain. Industrial orbital sanders use long rectangular blocks/pads. A drum sander can replace planer marks with scratches very nicely.
6) For thin strips, I run them as long as possible, due to snipe, and then crosscut them. A drum sander does work very well for this sort of thing, because a planer tends to bounce them around a bit, or blow them up if they hit a weird spot of grain.

[Joe Jensen]

I'll take a shot at this. I've owned a Perfomax 22/44 that I used very hard, and currently run a 37" double drum Extrema every day.



1) Depends somewhat on the model. Drum sanders are prone to snipe because of the lack of chipbreaker and pressure bar, especially in thin stock. The Performax type with tiny little rollers right next to the drum does a pretty decent job most of the time (How's that for an endorsement!?)
2) Wood type and hardness does play a role, but proper grit and speed selection give consistent results. Once that is figured out, the micrometer can take a rest.
3) I'm not, just panels, flat assemblies like doors, and woods that would be marginal in the planer.
4) I see it as a luxury unless you need it for the things in #3 above. You can go to 220 if you really want to, but the wraps load up fast. I run 120 / 180 in mine, and the second drum is rubber coated for some slight cushioning.
5) Woodmaster used to sell a Rube Goldberg thingamajig that had a bunch of ROS held above the feed belt. I haven't seen it advertised for years. Looked like a nightmare to set up and maintain. Industrial orbital sanders use long rectangular blocks/pads. A drum sander can replace planer marks with scratches very nicely.
6) For thin strips, I run them as long as possible, due to snipe, and then crosscut them. A drum sander does work very well for this sort of thing, because a planer tends to bounce them around a bit, or blow them up if they hit a weird spot of grain.

Thanks JR, just the kind of info I'm looking for. The yield on 1/4" thick stock out of my planer is only about 80%. If I stopped at 3/8" it would nearly 100%.

How long does paper last? Hard to answer, maybe you could describe a project that consumed a wrap.

Is wrapping time consuming?

Do you change grits much?

thanks....joe

[J.R. Rutter]

Yep - yield on thin strips from the sander is total length minus 3-4" on each end.

Paper life depends on hardness, resin content, and amount of glue (from panels and joints) that is being removed. I use mine for cabinet doors. A typical kitchen might have 30-40 doors. I sand my panels after glue-up without scraping the squeeze-out. Then I sand the finished doors. I have things standardized so that I am removing about 0.015" to 0.02" per pass. My wraps usually last about 2-3 kitchens (maybe 4 alder sets). This is at 120/180, which is pretty fine for most people but works for stuff like mine where I flatten stock on jointer / planer first.

BUT, I had a guy come in to sand a 36" wide bench top - hard maple. He hadn't scraped the glue, and I went through several wraps before I told him I was done. You HAVE to angle any part with a gluey seam so the wrap doesn't load up and start burning. In fact, I angle long strips slightly as well, so the heat doesn't build up on one small section of drum - heat ruins wraps fast.

Wraps for my sander take about 15 minutes total. So including shop time and abrasives, that's about $.45 per door. Not too bad . . .

[Brad Naylor]

It's all down to what you do and how you work.

I have a 12" thicknesser (that's English for planer) and a 36" drum sander. I buy all my timber rough sawn and so a thicknesser is absolutely essential in combination with my planer (that's English for jointer) to dimension stock. The sander is useful for levelling doors and glued up panels, and for thicknessing very thin pieces that could explode in the thicknesser.

However, a friend of mine makes a good living building custom kitchens, buys all his timber in planed to size, and doesn't even own a planer or a thicknesser! He has though, just spent $20,000 on a wide belt sander.

Personally, I'd want both. For years I managed just fine with a 12" DeWalt bench-top thicknesser and the drum sander. That kind of set-up would come within your budget.

Cheers
Brad