What was I thinking buying this dual drum sander?

[Frank Pratt]

I need an education. I don't have a drum sander, but many who do, use them mainly as a thicknesser to flatten wide glue ups. This takes several passes because it will only take a light cut on each pass. It seems like a dual drum sander would be wasted on this type of operation, no?

[Mark Bolton]

I need an education. I don't have a drum sander, but many who do, use them mainly as a thicknesser to flatten wide glue ups. This takes several passes because it will only take a light cut on each pass. It seems like a dual drum sander would be wasted on this type of operation, no?

Your not going to hog off a bunch without stepping down to coarse paper and then at that point the power of the sander (usually 5HP max) is going to kill how heavy a pass you can take. I would not in any way consider any drum sander anything like a thicknesser. They are barely capable of doing a little flattening (.0125" per pass max) and just cleaning up milling marks from a planer or jointer. They will do very little flattening due to pretty low feed roll pressure but even that is minimal and limited to the conveyor size.

Super light final calibrating and removal of milling marks is about all you can expect.

[Steve Mathews]

Your not going to hog off a bunch without stepping down to coarse paper and then at that point the power of the sander (usually 5HP max) is going to kill how heavy a pass you can take. I would not in any way consider any drum sander anything like a thicknesser. They are barely capable of doing a little flattening (.0125" per pass max) and just cleaning up milling marks from a planer or jointer. They will do very little flattening due to pretty low feed roll pressure but even that is minimal and limited to the conveyor size.

Super light final calibrating and removal of milling marks is about all you can expect.

What Mark attests to became quickly apparent after making just a few test passes with my Powermatic DDS-225. I can't see using it to hog off much material even with 80 grit on the front roller.

[todd werner]

Agreed. I sometimes use it to clean up a board after using the planer to get to thickness, but more for knocking a vcarve inlay flush or any time I can save time sanding later by starting with a decent surface.
Sanding is the most tedious part of woodworking to me, so I'd probably get rid of my jointer or band saw, before I'd give up the drum sander.

[Mark Bolton]

What Mark attests to became quickly apparent after making just a few test passes with my Powermatic DDS-225. I can't see using it to hog off much material even with 80 grit on the front roller.

Something to remember is that 80 grit is not really "coarse" for a drum sander. 80/120 would be a standard when we run the drum sander but it wouldnt be ridiculous depending on the species and what your doing to go even coarser than that. 80/100, 60/100, would be reasonable options for more aggressive material removal or some heavier flattening with light passes and lower feed speeds. This sander tends to see a lot of hard maple so the 120 gets close to a reasonably removable scratch with RO but its still a bear. But when you jump to 150 the passes have to be so light and the paper just doesnt last to make it worth it. Finding the sweet spot where you dont load up the paper and kill a spot creating a nasty burn or ridge but still being able to run parts at a decent feed speed is the trick.

The more DC you can have the better especially if your sanding a any amount of taller parts that arent wide. When your conveyor gets far away from the drums your pickup will fall off.

[Jeff Duncan]

Those are great machines!! I had one I bought new maybe 15 years or so ago and it was worth every penny. If you outgrow it the next step up is a widebelt. At the time it was one of the best drum sanders I could find. Most of the competition was inferior to far inferior, so worth a little extra $. I haven't kept up with whats available since I sold mine when I went to a widebelt about 11 years ago. But will tell you this, if its the same quality as mine was, you have a good machine and should get a LOT of use out of it. As for variable speed, I never needed it then and don't need it now. Far more important to know how to use the machine correctly and not overdo it. Had to explain this to the guy who bought mine several times, as he just kept burning up belts trying to remove too much in a pass!!!

good luck,
JeffD