Eric Larsen
09-29-2008, 8:30 PM
I have this niggling little voice in the back of my head that occasionally says, "Who the heck do you think you are having a Timesaver in your little garage shop?"
Everyone probably remembers my little "gloat of the year" when I got my 24" wide-belt for basically the same cost as a drum sander.
So, today I finally fired the Grizzly 9964 10hp wide belt. I'm in the middle of three jobs. Today's job was "mill paneling for the walk in closet."
Using the bandsaw, I resawed 1.5x8x10' spanish cedar into 1/4" boards. Then I ran the boards though the sander, 1/64" at a time, until they finally came to final dimension of 3/16" -- smooth as a baby's bottom.
Well, actually, smoother. Glass smooth. "High Mountain lake on a wind-free day" smooth.
My first cuts with the bandsaw were not good. I experienced some drift and some non-parallel cuts due to operator error. Even these resulted in usable panels (after some crosscutting).
After a six hour day, I had 3 2-foot boards (the mistakes), 15 3-foot boards, 14 4-footers and 4 5-footers.
The amount of time saved cannot be overstated. I MUCH prefer running the stock through the wide-belt five times. My old way would require running the stock through a planer twice, then hitting it for (what seems like) hours with a ROS.
Would a drum sander do as good a job? Probably, yes.
Is the 2-ton sander in my garage overkill? Most definitely.
If I had the same choice would I still buy a wide-belt? ABSOLUTELY!
Everyone probably remembers my little "gloat of the year" when I got my 24" wide-belt for basically the same cost as a drum sander.
So, today I finally fired the Grizzly 9964 10hp wide belt. I'm in the middle of three jobs. Today's job was "mill paneling for the walk in closet."
Using the bandsaw, I resawed 1.5x8x10' spanish cedar into 1/4" boards. Then I ran the boards though the sander, 1/64" at a time, until they finally came to final dimension of 3/16" -- smooth as a baby's bottom.
Well, actually, smoother. Glass smooth. "High Mountain lake on a wind-free day" smooth.
My first cuts with the bandsaw were not good. I experienced some drift and some non-parallel cuts due to operator error. Even these resulted in usable panels (after some crosscutting).
After a six hour day, I had 3 2-foot boards (the mistakes), 15 3-foot boards, 14 4-footers and 4 5-footers.
The amount of time saved cannot be overstated. I MUCH prefer running the stock through the wide-belt five times. My old way would require running the stock through a planer twice, then hitting it for (what seems like) hours with a ROS.
Would a drum sander do as good a job? Probably, yes.
Is the 2-ton sander in my garage overkill? Most definitely.
If I had the same choice would I still buy a wide-belt? ABSOLUTELY!