anyone with experience on performax drum sander

[William Nimmo]

I just picked up off craigslist the 16-32 performax drum sander plus. It is the same as the jet drum sander 16-32. It was an estate type situation so it has been mothballed for a few years. Runs fine and looks good but I can't try it yet as the conveyor belt is no good. I have one on order. I have been using rough sawn lumber, and a thickness planer so I am looking forward to liking this addition. Anyone with any insight on this machine?
Thanks

[Steven Wilson]

I have one, they work fine but they are slow at removing stock. As long as you stay within its limits it will work fine. They are fairly easy to setup and hold their adjustment well.

[Craig D Peltier]

I just got one the other day used. I was told to make sure you have it on a 20 amp circuit.The motor will cut off iff too much is taken off, which may happen alot. I was also told anything under 6 inch wide feed at around 70 or a little less. If over 6 inch try 50ish.Also always feed closest to the motor I was told.Due to the friction on the oustide drum or something like that. He had the drum adjusted 1/64th higher on the left side for that reason I guess.Worked fine for him. Iove only used it for 7 shelves.Worked nice.

[John Bush]

They do work well, particularly if you aren't too aggressive. I just sold mine and bought a used PerformaX shoppro 25, which is closed ended, and has the amp measurng system that adjusts the belt speed as the load on the drum varies It is really a slick system, that I think can be retrofitted to a 16-32. I did see one shop that had added an amp meter in line with the drum motor, and he could manually adjust speed to keep consistent amp load. After using you new sander for a while, you should be able to "sense" when the drum is working too hard and adjust the speed manually as well. Kind of like a video game.

[Alex Elias]

I have the 22-44 and really like it. As mentioned earlier don't try to get much at once specially on hard woods and more so on oily woods, I #&$&_+@*&$^%##$ a few lenghts of sand paper already. It is pretty straight forward. Make sure it is set up correctly (drum parallel to the belt so you get an equal thickness accross the 16".
Enjoy your new toy

[William Nimmo]

Thanks for the replies.
Amazing that I can ask a question right before going to sleep, and when I wake up have the 4 answers.
What a resource this is.

[Chris Barton]

I have the P22-44 and it's a great machine but, it's a sander, not a planer. Too many folks think they can hog off a 1/8" at the time but no drum sander is made to do that.

[Lou Ortiz]

You may want to pick up a cleaning stick to take care of the sanding belts, it will really extend their life (or use old tennis shoes). As everyone's commented, watch the feed rate and don't try to hog off too much, but be especially careful on cherry as the paper will load up and start to burn a strip on the piece you're surfacing. The scales aren't much to speak of, so keep the calipers handy.

Otherwise, you'll really enjoy having this thing around.

[Doug Shepard]

When you change paper rolls, make sure you get all slack out of the wrap. It's easy to do once you get the hang of it, but does take a bit of attention at first. Any little bit of slack can sometimes cause a whiplash effect when started up, causing the wrap to break at the ends. At about $5 per roll, that can get real irritating.
Take very light passes or you can have the wood jam under the roller and quickly sand a deep scallop across the board. Despite having the feedbelt, I also feel it's necessary to both apply a bit of hand push at the back of the board as well as hold the work down snug to the conveyor belt.
It's not the most used tool in my shop, but darn nice to have for some things.