Mike Cutler
06-02-2007, 5:23 PM
After much deliberation I finally pulled the trigger on a new drum sander.
I settled the Steel City 26" Drum Sander. The General was a very close 2nd.
Initial impressions are that this thing is a tank. It's heavy folks, I ended up buying a chainfall and hooked it to a beam in the garage to get it out of the truck and onto the mobile base. There is just nothing to grab ahold of on the exterior of the machine.
I ran a test piece of wood through it to see how parallel the drums were. They were dead on. Nice, no adjusting right out of the box.
Dust collection is going to be an issue. My Jet DC 1100 can't keep up with the sander via the 2, 4" DC ports on the machine. I was taking lite passes additionally.
It takes about 5 minutes to have the machine up and running once you get it out of the crate, and that is one heavy duty crate. It comes prewired for 220, and all there is to install is the table crank and the ON/OFF switch.
One slight comment on the user manual. They show a little cartoon of two people lifting the machine off of the pallet. At 500lbs,and nothing to grab ahold of this isn't going to happen. The manual should have included a drawing of where it was safe to rig and lift the machine. I ended up making a basket sling and attached it to the chainfall. Steel City really should include rigging points on the machine.
I like it, and hope to be using it a lot in the near future.
Here is the pic to show it's real, and satisfy the Pic Police.;)
I settled the Steel City 26" Drum Sander. The General was a very close 2nd.
Initial impressions are that this thing is a tank. It's heavy folks, I ended up buying a chainfall and hooked it to a beam in the garage to get it out of the truck and onto the mobile base. There is just nothing to grab ahold of on the exterior of the machine.
I ran a test piece of wood through it to see how parallel the drums were. They were dead on. Nice, no adjusting right out of the box.
Dust collection is going to be an issue. My Jet DC 1100 can't keep up with the sander via the 2, 4" DC ports on the machine. I was taking lite passes additionally.
It takes about 5 minutes to have the machine up and running once you get it out of the crate, and that is one heavy duty crate. It comes prewired for 220, and all there is to install is the table crank and the ON/OFF switch.
One slight comment on the user manual. They show a little cartoon of two people lifting the machine off of the pallet. At 500lbs,and nothing to grab ahold of this isn't going to happen. The manual should have included a drawing of where it was safe to rig and lift the machine. I ended up making a basket sling and attached it to the chainfall. Steel City really should include rigging points on the machine.
I like it, and hope to be using it a lot in the near future.
Here is the pic to show it's real, and satisfy the Pic Police.;)