Steel City vs. Performax Drum Sander

[John Michaels]

I'm thinking of buying a drum sander this summer and wondering if anyone has purchased the Steel City 55210 16" x 32" Drum Sander. It looks similar to the Performax. One thing that puzzles me is why Steel City put a 2 1/2" dust port on instead of a 4". It comes with an adapter, but this will probably reduce the effectiveness of my Delta 1.5 hp DC. From what I hear drum sanders produce alot of dust. My other choice is the Performax 16" x 32" with the 4" dust port.

[Mike Cutler]

Between those two. Go for the Performax.
The Steel City is a clone of the first generation of Performax sanders, which also came with a 2 1/2" dust port, and which a lot of people made their own 4" DC hoods and retrofitted them to handle the dust, and make them more compatable with the 4" DC hoses and pickups that are more readily available..
Steel City should have supplied their sander with a 4" dust port.

All this being said, I would encourage you to look at the bigger dual drum sanders. Having both the Performax 16-32, and a Steel City 26" dual drum sander. I cannot emphasize enough how much better off you'll be with the bigger sander, if it's within your budget range.

[Al Willits]

Just bought the 22-44 Perfomax Plus and pretty happy with it, I'm doing larger panels with it and glad I got the larger unit, also they reccomend running the boards though at a angle and the larger unit makes this easier, not sure if I see any difference doing it that way over straight, but who knows...:)
The 4" duct works well for dust collection and the JDS dust force I have handles it easily.

Al

[Chris Padilla]

Just bought the 22-44 Perfomax Plus and pretty happy with it, I'm doing larger panels with it and glad I got the larger unit, also they reccomend running the boards though at a angle and the larger unit makes this easier, not sure if I see any difference doing it that way over straight, but who knows...:)
The 4" duct works well for dust collection and the JDS dust force I have handles it easily.

Al


Al, I'd surmise that the reason they suggest running boards through at an angel is to get more of the sandpaper used as opposed to one spot doing all the sanding.

Skewing the wood while face-planing on a jointer is done for similar reasons but mostly it is done to get more of a shear cut on the wood in hopes of having minimal tear-out.

The Perfomax 22-44 is my final piece of large equipment that I want for my gara...err, shop but wifey wants some progress done in the house before I can convince her of the need. :)

[Al Willits]

"""""""""
Al, I'd surmise that the reason they suggest running boards through at an angel is to get more of the sandpaper used as opposed to one spot doing all the sanding.

Skewing the wood while face-planing on a jointer is done for similar reasons but mostly it is done to get more of a shear cut on the wood in hopes of having minimal tear-out.

The Perfomax 22-44 is my final piece of large equipment that I want for my gara...err, shop but wifey wants some progress done in the house before I can convince her of the need. :)
"""""""""

Sounds good to me and makes sense..:)

Just gotta whine a bit more, worked for me anyway. :)

Al

[Anthony Whitesell]

I'll just as a rookie question here. (oh, wait a minute I am a rookie) Aren't you supposed to sand in the direction of the grain? Would feeding them on an angle be sanding on an angle?

I understand about feeding them through the planer on an angle. That increases the shear angle for the cut. You do the same thing with a handplane. The bonus with the planer is that you get to use more of the blade as well. I try to spread the work around when I use the planer.

[Robert foster]

John:
I have the steel city drum sander and am satisfied with it except for the smaller Dc outlet. I haven't had any problem with excess dust but I still would like to have a 4 inch connector.
This doesn't matter as I was told that Steel City has discontinued the sander anyway. I purchased mine as a clearance item through Woodsmith Shop but it was ordered from Nashville. At that time ( two months ago) I was told that they only had 6 left.
I have been told that it was a cross between a jet and a delta but I believe it was built in the same factory that builds Ryobi as I discovered Ryobi's name on the styrofoam packing. I think you will be happy with the Jet and with the lower price on the 22" I would have gone with it if I had it to do all over again.

Bob