Have you seen/built a "V" drum sander?

[dennis thompson]

I saw a "V" drum sander from Stockroom Supply at the woorworking show in NJ today,it seemed pretty impressive. Has anyone built one? used one? what do you think of it?
Thanks
Dennis

[Jon Herrera]

I got the 4" x 30" setup for my shop at a school I teach at. After I figured out how to adjust it precisely, it worked great. It will be a huge addition to my shop, and I plan on using it to death.

[Eddie Darby]

Nice little unit that works like a charm. Do a search here and you will find a few threads on the v-drum sander.

:):):):):):):):)

[Randal Stevenson]

I emailed the company a couple of times, asking for the price and availability of their tops. No answer. (Windowscentric website)

I tried through my/their ebay account and got a reply. But they never had a top/kit all in one, and I had a few more questions.
So I waited till they were here, at the Feb. 2nd, show. I got the majority of my questions answered, and got to both look and try one hands on.
One issue that I never saw people discuss anywhere, that I asked about, was using it as a thickness sander. Effectively from the techniques he showed, you can use it to thickness sand parallel sides, however you cannot use it to thickness sand non parallel sides, like you can with a drum sander.
I did see one person build a drum style sander with what I believe was their drum (one similar at least), and I am thinking, eventually I may try to make one that has a motor and drum over this table (sands both sides). But for now, with its dust collection, my learning of handplanes, a router sled (SRK), and planner (thicknessing parallel), I decided to get one.

[Eddie Darby]

The problem with using this unit for thickness sanding is that you are ramming/forcing the wood into the drum, which builds up heat and causes the hook part of the hook n' loop velcro system to melt. Not a good thing.:eek:

The beauty of this V drum sander is best seen when the sandpaper is being lifted by the forces developed while the drum is spinning. This spinning causes the sandpaper to lift off the drum slightly, and thus create an air pocket that leads to cooler running, which in turn leads to less burning of wood and gumming up of sandpaper.

The adjustment for height between the drum and the table top is performed with the machine running for just this reason, that you need to take into account that the sandpaper is lifted from it's at rest position once the unit is running. To adjust the depth of cut after the height is set only requires you to quickly and easily change the sandpaper grit to suit how much wood you want to remove.

The only time I need to 'thickness sand' is when my thickness planer can't make a clean cut in the wild grain woods.
Then I just use my planer to get the appropriate thickness I want, plus a little extra to sand off to get the surface finish I want.

I finish thickness planing by making really fine finishing cuts on my planer, which reduces the amount of sanding I have to do, and then I go to the V drum sander and fine sandpaper to get the finish I want on wood that is already the proper thickness. The sander removes the same amount of wood from each side, and I am done.

[Eddie Darby]

I emailed the company a couple of times, asking for the price and availability of their tops. No answer. (Windowscentric website)

The top can be easily made from the plans they offer.

[Randal Stevenson]

The problem with using this unit for thickness sanding is that you are ramming/forcing the wood into the drum, which builds up heat and causes the hook part of the hook n' loop velcro system to melt. Not a good thing.:eek:

The beauty of this V drum sander is best seen when the sandpaper is being lifted by the forces developed while the drum is spinning. This spinning causes the sandpaper to lift off the drum slightly, and thus create an air pocket that leads to cooler running, which in turn leads to less burning of wood and gumming up of sandpaper.

The adjustment for height between the drum and the table top is performed with the machine running for just this reason, that you need to take into account that the sandpaper is lifted from it's at rest position once the unit is running. To adjust the depth of cut after the height is set only requires you to quickly and easily change the sandpaper grit to suit how much wood you want to remove.

The only time I need to 'thickness sand' is when my thickness planer can't make a clean cut in the wild grain woods.
Then I just use my planer to get the appropriate thickness I want, plus a little extra to sand off to get the surface finish I want.

I finish thickness planing by making really fine finishing cuts on my planer, which reduces the amount of sanding I have to do, and then I go to the V drum sander and fine sandpaper to get the finish I want on wood that is already the proper thickness. The sander removes the same amount of wood from each side, and I am done.


The top can be easily made from the plans they offer.

Making the top. Right now, for me, it was cheaper to buy then time to make. (and the show had the kit with top, reasonable).

Now he showed using the V sander to make two coplaner surfaces, into a different thickness, but I did see someone build a velcro based drum, into a noncoplaner, thicknessing sander. The way they did it, was to make the table height adjustable, to you ran the table just up to where it was hitting the sandpaper, when it was running. I see that as a benefit for boards that are wider then my planer (Now I just have to find the bookmark again)
With that method, no melting velcro.

[Ben Rafael]

Is it me? Am I missing something? I dont see the big deal about the V drum sander at that price.
For a little more money you can find good used drum sanders that can be used
for thicknessing.

[Jack Clay]

I have looked at these for a few years now and have not built one. I do not think they would be compared to a drum sander but more as a jointer. It seems like you would come more to flatten with this tool than a drum sander. I think of a drum sander as a planner and the only way I can get that to flatten is to run it over my jointer first.

[Mike Spanbauer]

For shop sawn veneers, I don't think this would work. The sanding I do w/ my 22-44 enables me to remove variations and ensure parrallelism (sp?) between both faces down to 3/32 which is what I apply my shop sawn veneers at.

It would however be VERY cool as a finishing sander loaded with 220 or 320 grit and just left there. Neat idea though and certainly one HECK of a lot lighter than my beast (I've the Pro model, weighing nearly 375lbs)

mike

[John Hollaway]

I built a 2" x 18" V-Drum sander several years ago and just love it. No adjusting for thickness, no dust collection needed, just flip the switch and skim your wood over the table surface. It really shines when used for leveling proud box joints, dovetail pins and mitered corners - all things you can't do with the drum sander. I still use my Supermax drum sander a lot, but there's just no getting around the fact that the V-Drum sander saves me a lot of time. I suspect that the negative posts are from those who have never tied one.

[Randal Stevenson]

I have looked at these for a few years now and have not built one. I do not think they would be compared to a drum sander but more as a jointer. It seems like you would come more to flatten with this tool than a drum sander. I think of a drum sander as a planner and the only way I can get that to flatten is to run it over my jointer first.

Best analogy I have seen.


Is it me? Am I missing something? I dont see the big deal about the V drum sander at that price.
For a little more money you can find good used drum sanders that can be used
for thicknessing.

If you were only trying to use this as a drum sander, then your money is better spent elsewhere. It has other features like below.


I built a 2" x 18" V-Drum sander several years ago and just love it. No adjusting for thickness, no dust collection needed, just flip the switch and skim your wood over the table surface. It really shines when used for leveling proud box joints, dovetail pins and mitered corners - all things you can't do with the drum sander. I still use my Supermax drum sander a lot, but there's just no getting around the fact that the V-Drum sander saves me a lot of time. I suspect that the negative posts are from those who have never tied one.

My planer does fine for surfacing and thicknessing, but there are wide board occasions, and between a router sled, and this, this tool has more benefit to me then a drum sander would (currently). I just think this kit, could be adapted in some way to even handle my rare needs as a thickness sander.

[Jack Clay]

Have any of the people that use the V-drum sander used it to sand a wide panel? I would think you would need a hold-down but it seems like it would work. The other question is could you use it as a jointer on a board that is wider than your jointer.Thanks for any input.

[Eddie Darby]

Since both ends are open on a V drum sander, because there are no ends, the limits on width of board is unrestricted. Yes on really big boards you will need to use some additional support, but I don't think you will run into that problem too often.
My 18" drum can easily handle 36" wide boards with no support.

I generally find that people who object to the V-Drum sander usually already own a thickness sander, and so they are defending the purchase they have made.
While I can do all the things a thickness sander does, just that I need to go about it in a different way, I really don't think the two units are in competition with each other, but rather the tools I have in my shop compliment each other.

[Jack Clay]

Can the people that have made the V-drum sanders put some pictures of there sanders in this thread?

[Randal Stevenson]

Have any of the people that use the V-drum sander used it to sand a wide panel? I would think you would need a hold-down but it seems like it would work. The other question is could you use it as a jointer on a board that is wider than your jointer.Thanks for any input.

They talk about building a fence (or in my case using a piece of 80/20 extrusion that I bought for another project that fell through), and using either featherboards, or their featherwheels.



I generally find that people who object to the V-Drum sander usually already own a thickness sander, and so they are defending the purchase they have made.
While I can do all the things a thickness sander does, just that I need to go about it in a different way, I really don't think the two units are in competition with each other, but rather the tools I have in my shop compliment each other.

Eddie, could you please back up that statement about being able to do all things a thickness sander can do, preferably with pic's?
I know you can make a board (or door, etc) thinner, but I still haven't seen how to make it parallel on both sides. I would be interested.


Can the people that have made the V-drum sanders put some pictures of there sanders in this thread?

Jack after the usual www, their website is stockroomsupply.com.

[Eddie Darby]

"Eddie, could you please back up that statement about being able to do all things a thickness sander can do, preferably with pic's?
I know you can make a board (or door, etc) thinner, but I still haven't seen how to make it parallel on both sides. I would be interested."
================================================== ==
Don't own a camera! :mad:
Perhaps you can use an internal camera.:D

If you use a thickness planer for thicknessing, then you clean-up with the sander if you have tear-out. The V-drum sander removes the same amount of material, so the parallel sides remain so.

If I have to thin down veneer, then I double tape it to a backer-board, and run it through. I'm not limited to any thickness, since I am using a backer-board.

If I wanted for some odd reason to thickness sand only ( don't know why but hey ), then I would run the wood on a backer-board with two-way tape, that is wider than the width of the drum ( 18" ), and the backer-board would have runners on the sides, which would be the final thickness I am looking for. Both runners would be clear of the drum on the top edges. It would be like an inverted shoe or an upside-down "U".

When I tackle wide pieces of wood up to 36" I don't need a support, since more than half of the board is on the table. It is only when more of the board is off the table, than on, that you need to counter the down force.
The drum is 18" and then there is a 3" border around the drum, so the wood would need to be twice 21" before tipping occurs.

[Randal Stevenson]

I am going to have to remember this thread. Thanks Eddie.

The only reason currently I could see a thickness (coplanner) sander being useful was that. Sounds like a mod of a planer sled (hot glue the board to the sled). I will have to give it a try someday (waiting for another big old chunk (too big for the planer) that someone fines (or I find at Habitat ReStore).

[Eddie Darby]

If you want you could also clamp down on the table top of the sander unit, the side rail/runners, and have a slight amount of the wood on the rails removed when you start up the sander. Now you can just use a backer-board on it's own with the piece of wood being sanded double taped to the backer-board.

The advantage of this way is that you could set-up multiple rails/runners, and have multiple grits of sand-paper on the same drum. Now you can progress very fast through the grits. The drawback is that you are reducing the maximum width that the sander will handle, so this would be a good way to handle narrow pieces.

[Sanford Asman]

I just saw the demo at the Atlanta Woodworking Show, and it was quite impressive. While I could certainly knock off either the DIY or kit version, the extra cost for their new metal version, which they call the "Flat Master", was much less than the time it would take me to complete one in my shop. The results I witnessed were absolutely impressive -- no sandpaper loading, sandpaper grit changes in well under a minute (probably less than 30 seconds), and no dust flying around.

For some reason, they do not include a motor with the unit, but I have a number of suitable motors, so that should not be an issue. In fact, I saw photos at the show of a customer who made a unit with a power take off and mounting so that he could use it on his ShopSmith. I thought that was pretty interesting, as I have two ShopSmiths.

I'll try to post something after mine arrives and I get it set up.

[Jim Finn]

I built the V sander and found that it worked well for making chessboards if I was VERY careful at the feed rate. If not VERY careful it made waves in the surface. I have since bought a thickness sander from grizzly and it works a LOT better for me.