Wood Show Drum Sander

[Jack Clay]

I have been picking up parts for a drum sander for awhile now and been looking at planes. I went to the wood show today and seen the drum sander that Stock Room Supply sells. I seen them three years ago and thought it was a good idea but nothing that simple could work. I went two years ago and they were there and I was able to get a catalog and thought I would do more research on there web site. Last year I went and they were not there so when I got home I tried there web site and it was gone. So I thought well there is my answer about this really working. I went to the wood show today and turned the corner and there they were. I thought this is it I am going to find out all I can to see if this simple build and concept will work. I ask every question I could think of and they even let me try it. It sure seems like it works very well. Has anybody here built one of these or used one. If so what do you think of them?

[Scott Rollins]

I have seen it and I think it would save time sanding, however I wanted to use a drum sander for thicknessing and it would not do that. There is a store bought version of this called the sandflee.

[Jack Clay]

That is a good point if you do not have a planner but I use my planner to get a thickness that I want but if will not flatten the stock. It looked like this setup will flatten stock. I have not used any drum sander but it looks like the operation of a planner. Can some one that has standard belt sander tell me how they compare? How much stock can you remove at on time and why would you use that over a planner to remove a lot of stock.

I found some old threads here that some people were looking at this tool are there anybody that has been using for awhile. Thank you for any help on this issue.

[Charlie Plesums]

You may be referring to the drum sander I have seen at many woodworking shows, where you move the work over a fixed sanding drum in a table. I have no interest in that device because it doesn't do anything I can't do better with a random orbital sander, and

It introduces linear scratches (like a regular drum sander), which will subsequently have to be sanded out
I doesn't "make the work perfectly flat" - a function of a regular drum sander that uses the moving table under the drum to determine the flat reference, averaging the surface of the bottom of the work
Looked like an opportunity to introduce unevenness if your operating technique wasn't perfect (just as you can mess up a board in a jointer if you aren't careful)The large drum sanders can remove a fair amount of wood, but that is not their function... it is to make the work flat and smooth. A planer should be used to remove the volume of wood, even if you will subsequently use a powerful drum or wide belt sander.

[Peter Quinn]

Maybe off topic here, but I'm with charlie on several points. No sander replaces a planer. I got a performax and struggled with it for months with mixed results, mostly because I tried to take too much material off per pass. Went to work in a cabinet shop with a 38" digital monster widebelt. 15HP 3 PHASE. Even the mighty widebelt can only remove .010"-.015" per pass successfully. On most drum sanders thats less than 1/8 turn of the handle per pass! Not a quick way to thickness anything.

With light passes a drum or widebelt can get glued up panels or doors amazingly flat, but you really need to be very close to start with. They are known as timesavers, not mistake fixers. You have to have a flat table under a perfectly parrallel drum for this to work. With doors the cross grain scratching on the rails may take more time to remove than its worth, especially on hard woods like maple. And when its done, a sanded panel always looks dull compared to hand scraped work. If you make your own veneer or loose tenon splines these machines are a huge help.

I looked into the sandflea/homemade concept, but as Charlie points out the basic concept is flawed. Nobody I know enjoys sanding, but its inevitable, and these simple machines may create more problems than they solve.

[Paul Williams]

I built the sander from Stock Room Supply several years ago. It is definately not a cure all for sanding. It is real easy to cut too deep at the start and finish of a pass and just barely touch the center of the board. Technique means a lot with this thing. I do use it for sanding down the fingers of box joints, but use my ROS for most other sanding. Not sure I would bother to build one again. It does do a great job of dust collection with just a shop vac attached to the box.

[Doug Hobkirk]

Build it upside down with 4 threaded rod posts over a treadmill - take pictures and report back!