Drum Sander Replacement Rolls

[Mike Cutler]

Hey folks.
I have the Steel City 26" Drumsander. It came with abrasive rolls that are 5 1/8" wide, they really are 5 1/8" too, and are pretty expensive to replace with "Steel City" rolls.
Is there any reason that 4" or 6" wide abrasive rolls won't work?. These sizes are very easy to source, and relatively inexpensive when purchased in rolls, when compared to OEM replacement paper.
Thanks.

PS.
Any tips, tricks or sources of quality abrasive rolls would be very much appreciated.

TIA.

[Bill Arnold]

I buy 150' shop rolls from Klingspor to make my own replacements for my Jet 1632 drum sander. The cost is a small fraction of the OEM replacements. In my case, I can match the 3" width. I'm not familiar with your sander.

[Steve Clardy]

I buy 50' rolls of 6" from Woodmaster tools.

[David DeCristoforo]

You don't have to use the 5.125" wide rolls. Don't forget, the abrasive is applied in a spiral and you typically have to cut a long taper on each end. So the actual width of the roll is not an issue. You can just cut the tapers "to fit".

[Mike Cutler]

You don't have to use the 5.125" wide rolls. Don't forget, the abrasive is applied in a spiral and you typically have to cut a long taper on each end. So the actual width of the roll is not an issue. You can just cut the tapers "to fit".

I pretty much thought that their couldn't be a difference as long as the drum is covered properly.
I'll use the OEM roll as a template to get the taper started correctly and then "roll my own".
That 5.125" was an odd size. I'll probably go to 6" like Steve suggested.

Thanks for the feedback folks, just needed a sanity check.;)

[Bryan Cowing]

other Asian machines of the same configuration use 4" wide belts.

[Dave Laird in NM]

Woodworker's Supply did extensive testing on different wraps for the drum sanders and found that the wider paper did not perform as well as the narrower 3" paper. The cloth backed paper would stretch and break. They introduced a polyester backed sandpaper that has outperformed anything else that we could get out hands on.

If we do not have the exact precut wrap for your machine we will make it or we have the rolls of uncut 3" by 70'.

[Mike Heidrick]

I use the belts from a seller on ebay (not sure of seller's name but I bought a box of 16 rolls or so) for my 22/44ST with great results.

[J.R. Rutter]

The cheapest wraps that I have found are stroke sander belts from Woodworker's Supply. I can get 2 wraps from a 280" (going from memory) belt, which works out to about $8 per wrap. I just cut my own tapers patterned from the originals to fit the 36" x 6" drums on my sander. This is cheaper than any bulk roll that I've seen lately, including, oddly enough, bulk rolls from Woodworker's Supply!

[Ron Blaise]

Industrial Abrasives Company and love their product and prices. Most of the pro's I know shop with them. Here is the web link:

http://commerce.riverweb.com:8002/index.html