Where do you buy your drum sandpaper

[Bruce King]

I have a Jet 18-36 coming soon, it has a 5 inch drum. I have some 220 coming but need some 100 and 150. Will the paper for the 19-38 work? Where is the best place to buy?

[Jim Becker]

Bruce, I can't advise on a source, but I will say that you'll likely use the coarser abrasive the majority of the time. Drum sanders are not really finishing sanders and it's so easy to "burn" things with the finer stuff. I only use 100 grit with mine, purely for thicknessing/leveling.

[Bruce King]

Ok, good info Jim.
It seems the 18-36 paper is not as popular.
I found it here with several grit choices
https://www.woodworkingshop.com/product/pe64080/

[glenn bradley]

As you have found, Klingspor is a source. Industrial Abrasives is also reasonably priced. I watch for sales and certainly find it less expensive to buy larger roles and cut the ends myself. I use a very old, large pair of tin snips to cut abrasives. I've had to sharpen them once in the last couple of decades. ;-)

[Zachary Hoyt]

I bought a big roll of 80 grit right after I bought my drum sander, and am still using it now, there's at least 1/3 left. It's a lot cheaper than buying pre-cut rolls and I have a giant pair of ancient scissors that I use for rough jobs like cutting sandpaper so it only takes about 2 minutes to roll out enough length and trace the ends of a factory roll onto it with a marker and cut them out.

[John K Jordan]

Bruce, I can't advise on a source, but I will say that you'll likely use the coarser abrasive the majority of the time. Drum sanders are not really finishing sanders and it's so easy to "burn" things with the finer stuff. I only use 100 grit with mine, purely for thicknessing/leveling.

Bruce,

I found that out quickly with my Performax 22-44.

I mostly use 80 and even 60 grit. I use mine a lot to flatten woodturning blanks before mounting. Sanding also reveals the wood figure, color, and any defects, allowing me to evaluate the blank better before mounting and turning. I don't need a finer grit for this use but if I did the ROS would fix it quickly.

IMG_7484.jpg

One way to get a certain size strip of sandpaper is to buy a roll. Save the strip that's on the drum now to use as a template.

JKJ

[Bruce King]

I just noticed that some of the places that have precut rolls don’t tell the width. When buying rolls to cut your own do you prefer 3 in or 2 in widths?

[Alex Zeller]

I buy directly from Klingspor. I don't know about other places but I've had no problems figuring out the width they are selling (I go with 6"). But I don't buy pre cut pieces, just full rolls. If you buy it by the roll you need to pay attention to not just width but length. You can get it in feet, yards, and meters. For example I think Grizzly sells their rolls in 50 foot lengths while Klingspor sells it in 10 and 25 meter lengths. So you need to figure out the square footage your actually buying to see how good the price is.

You'll also want to figure out how many pieces you can get out of a roll to determine if buying cut to fit is worth it. I have a woodmaster 26" with a 6" drum so I don't have the pre cut option. Woodmaster sells paper in 75' lengths and they tell you how many pieces you can get from a roll. I can be a little cheap so I'll use a piece that will not fully cover the drum. You need to be a little careful and I put strapping tape on each end so it can't come off. But if I'm going to sand 8" wide boards and I have a leftover piece of sandpaper from a roll that can cover 15" of my drum or if I have a piece that one end got damaged why throw it out. You just need to make sure you are not feeding it into the sander in a way that will miss the sandpaper. If you don't mind the premium then the cut to fit sheets are probably the way to go.

I also get my spindle sanding tubes and 20" discs from them. But you have to create an account if you go to Kingspor.com. But if you use the link Bruce posted above you go to their retail store where you don't need an account.

[Bruce King]

I found a large roll that is 3 3/8 wide but it says that it’s for the Jet 18-36 oscillating sander where mine is a drum sander. Will it work?
Which stays tighter, 2 inch or 3 inch?

[Andrew Seemann]

I did the math on precut vs buying a roll for my 19-38 Supermax, and found to my surprise that there wasn't a significant cost savings with buying a bulk roll vs precut. I'm guessing there isn't much cost savings to pass on from the manufacturer for bulk vs precut. The convenience and no waste precut was worth the the dollar difference for me. I just order mine from Acme. Rockler has it on has as well.

[David Kreuzberg]

Bruce,

I buy mine from https://www.onlineindustrialsupply.com/, who carry plain-backed rolls. I have a Shop Fox double drum sander that uses 3-in. hook & loop paper. Like Jim Becker, I use mine for fine-as-frog's-hair thickness sanding and have 60 grit on the first drum and 80 grit on the second. Final sand abrasive marks with a palm or random orbit sander if necessary.

[Bruce King]

The onlineindustrialsupply.com has good prices at 1.25 to 1.29 per sq inch for 100 to 150 ft rolls of 3 inch 100 grit.
Then I found
Maverickabrasives.com
3in x 75 ft $29.97. 60,80 or 120 grit etc
1.1 cents per Sq in. Minus a 15 percent discount if you sign up
so .93 cents per sq in

[Stewart Lang]

First off, install hook-and-loop on your drum sander. You'll go from lots of terrible burning (without it) to a wonderful almost finish quality machine that practically never burns

I buy my paper from supergrit.com, they're a great small company in the US. DEFINITELY try Abranet paper! It's a mesh and it practically never clogs up and cuts like a dream. Miles and miles ahead of traditional sandpaper on a metal drum. The mesh keeps it cool too. I can sand 220 without any burning taking moderately heavy passes all day long. The stuff is amazing.

[glenn bradley]

The onlineindustrialsupply.com has good prices at 1.25 to 1.29 per sq inch for 100 to 150 ft rolls of 3 inch 100 grit.
Then I found
Maverickabrasives.com
3in x 75 ft $29.97. 60,80 or 120 grit etc
1.1 cents per Sq in. Minus a 15 percent discount if you sign up
so .93 cents per sq in

I have no experience with those brands but, I would certainly want to hear from someone who has used them over a decent period of time; they may be fine. Cheap sandpaper is not cheap. Poor quality abrasives are more quickly consumed, leave poor results that require more sanding (that causes even quicker consumption). Like many facets of the craft, once you use a quality product you quickly realize how expensive the cheap version is.

Using sheet paper as an example, when I changed to Norton 3X paper I was amazed at the difference. When I switched to Klingspor's product I was amazed again and realized how poor the original papers I was using actually were. The Klingspor product outlasted the Norton many times, remained useful longer and left a superior finish which meant less sanding in the first place. A comparison to the original bargain brands I was using isn't even worth talking about.

"Cheap sandpaper is a false economy" - Glenn Bradley

[Eric Arnsdorff]

First off, install hook-and-loop on your drum sander. You'll go from lots of terrible burning (without it) to a wonderful almost finish quality machine that practically never burns

I buy my paper from supergrit.com, they're a great small company in the US. DEFINITELY try Abranet paper! It's a mesh and it practically never clogs up and cuts like a dream. Miles and miles ahead of traditional sandpaper on a metal drum. The mesh keeps it cool too. I can sand 220 without any burning taking moderately heavy passes all day long. The stuff is amazing.

I hadn’t heard of using hook and loop on a drum sander. Do the rolls have the backing and you wrap that on the drum or do you apply a strip of the hook side on your drum first?