Grizzly "Baby drum sander" minimum thickness?

[Jamie Buxton]

Grizzly sells a 12" drum sander. The current part number is G0459. I'd be using it to take the saw marks off band-sawn veneer. However, Grizzly says that the minimum stock thickness is 1/8", and I want veneer which is thinner than that -- more like 07-.08". I understand why thickness planers generally don't go thin -- the veneer gets sucked up into the knives, and it gets shattered. I'd hope a drum sander is less aggressive, so it could produce thinner veneer. But it seems that this sander can't go thin. Anybody with wisdom about producing thinner veneer with this sander, or drum sanders in general?

[Zachary Hoyt]

On my SuperMax 19-38 I can go down to 1/16" or .0625 easily, and on the occasions when I've wanted to go thinner I think I have gone down to .04-.05" without problems. I am almost always using 80 grit for flattening, and then I take the drum sanding marks out with a ROS. I don't have experience with the Grizzly.

[roger wiegand]

You don't want to do that right on the sander bed. Put your veneer onto a dead flat sheet of wood or plywood, or MDF and run it through the sander at 3/4" (or whatever your base measures) plus 1/32, or whatever. You will have a much easier time. You can glue some sandpaper onto your sled to make it "sticky", sometimes that's needed, sometimes not.

[Jamie Buxton]

You don't want to do that right on the sander bed. Put your veneer onto a dead flat sheet of wood or plywood, or MDF and run it through the sander at 3/4" (or whatever your base measures) plus 1/32, or whatever. You will have a much easier time. You can glue some sandpaper onto your sled to make it "sticky", sometimes that's needed, sometimes not.

Have you done that successfully with the Grizzly sander? Or with some other drum sander?

[bill godber]

You don't want to do that right on the sander bed. Put your veneer onto a dead flat sheet of wood or plywood, or MDF and run it through the sander at 3/4" (or whatever your base measures) plus 1/32, or whatever. You will have a much easier time. You can glue some sandpaper onto your sled to make it "sticky", sometimes that's needed, sometimes not.

My shopfox 12" planer manual says the same, no thinner than 1/8. I regularly go thinner than 1/16 using a 3/4 " thick mdf sled, it works really well.

[Jamie Buxton]

My shopfox 12" planer manual says the same, no thinner than 1/8. I regularly go thinner than 1/16 using a 3/4 " thick mdf sled, it works really well.

On a thickness planer?! My experience is different from yours. When I've tried to get down to a sixteenth with mine, it is a disaster. It seems that the leading edge gets bent up into the knives, and the veneer explodes. That experience is why I'm wondering if a drum sander would do the job.

[Michelle Rich]

I have been doing veneers for years and years. I don't know about your grizzly, but I believe any drum sander works about like any other. I use a 19-38 and in the past a performax 10-20. I double stick tape my veneers to a baltic birch base and make sure the leading edge is tightly taped to the base. Have had zero problems over the years. Go slowly, and don't try to take it all in one big swipe.

[roger wiegand]

Have you done that successfully with the Grizzly sander? Or with some other drum sander?

I have the Supermax 19/38, but I don't think it matters which sander you use. I've gone down to 1/8" on my planer using a sled, but thinner is more likely to work on the sander. When I make my own veneers it's frequently because I want them thicker than "store bought" so seldom go a lot thinner than 1/16".

Light cuts are essential as you get really thin. I too use 80 grit on the drum sander then finish with 120 on an ROS. Finish sanding happens after the veneer is glued in place.

[Steve Demuth]

I suspect the manual says that because the carrier belt on a drum sander often does not lie perfectly flat to the platen directly under the drum - the pressure of the workpiece being sanded and the stress of carrying it forward can cause a slight lifting of any part of the belt not held down by the workpiece. Likewise, the point pressure of the sanding line can cause the sanding belt on the drum to scrunch up ahead of the sanding line ever so slightly. So at thicknesses of 1/16" or so, you get the drum sanding the carrier belt. The solution is to run your veneers on a plywood or mdf platen that is close to the full width of your carrier belt. You generally need to bond the leading edge of the veneer firmly to the platen board to get it to feed reliably. A thin band of double sided tape at the leading edge of the veneer works well for this, but note that if you sand down below 1/8" using this technique, you may end up sacrificing the part of the veneer that was taped down. On the rare occassions I haven't been wanted to risk that 1/2" or so sacrifice of veneer, I've used water soluble veneer glue to attach it to the platen.

Drum sanders can only remove significant material using very coarse sanding belts, and these will not do for veneer sanding such as you want to do. I use 120 grit on mine when sanding veneer. But you will not want to take more than a maximum of 1/64" bites with that grit, and you'll need to run the workpiece through slowly even then, or you'll burn your workpiece and belt both. With easily burned woods like sugar maple, even 1/64" may not work.