Thread: 16-32 Drum Sander Dust Port upgrade

I remade the cover on mine with some scrap chip board, works a lot better with a 4" duct drawing on it

Cool, but I'm hoping not to have to remake the entire cover
Might just cut the hole larger and get some construction adhesive onto the 4" cover

Harry72 - can I ask how you find this sander??

I keep looking at the H&F (and Carbatec versions), but have never had the chance to use one and see how well they work. I'm mainly interested in finishing solid timber to dimension after jointing/thicknessing, so I'm mainly concerned with things like snipe, accuracy, etc.

I would only ever be taking the last 0.5mm or so off boards, so rate of material removal isn't an issue for me.

Cheers

Mine is a orange one... not a JET
They work ok and save a fair amount of time on panel work, changing the grit can be a PITA so I only use mine with coarse grits(60~80)and then remove the sanding marks with a random orbit finishing by hand with the direction of the grain.

My machine being at the cheaper end of the scale(not saying H&F or Carba's and JET are any better... but I would hope so) had bad alignment problems from "being assembled for a price", it took a fair amount of stuffing about to get it to an acceptable level as just about every bolt on the machine effected the finish.

They are not much good on high resin woods like pine, they clog the grit something cruel even with the bigger dust outlet(mines a 3hp dusty)and once they are starting to clog it will start to cause waving and bouncing marks even with the end stay/steady attached.
All these machines boast having double the width capacity IMHO its crap as its near impossible to get each pass level with the last when the wood is turned around to do the other side of the width.

Half a mil cut is a super heavy cut for one of these machines so dont even think about any "thicknessing" work unless your measuring with a micrometer, half a mil would see the feed platen belt slipping on its drive roller and probably a burn mark, 0.1~0.2mm is about the cut limit on a full width board.


Please dont be discouraged by what I've commented they are a very handy machine providing they are not abused(very easy to do), just takes a few times before you work out what it can do and what it cant.

Harry72 - thanks for the detailed feedback, much appreciated

I was very tempted to pick up the Carbatec version of this sander at the Sydney WWW show, as it was reasonably discounted. It seemed to be well made (at least Taiwanese rather than Chinese made...), but I found myself wondering "what's the catch?"

Although only supported on one side, the drum head seems quite stable. This would be my main concern - if I put in timber dressed to have parallel faces off the thicknesser, I want it to come out still parallel ! The guy at Carbatec said it is easiest to leave the drum alone, and carefully align the feed table to the drum by shimming it. I can thickness to within 0.1 - 0.2mm of final dimension, so I wouldn't need to take lots off on the sander.

I only want to dress solid timber to maybe 150mm wide, but I'm still wondering if I should plunk down the dollars for one of the bigger drum sanders. The next size up at H&F is around $1000, but is a more substantial machine.

I also looked at the other path to handle cranky grain, get better surface finish,etc., but a Shelix head for my JET JPT-310 is around $1700 + fitting . That price makes a mid-range drum sander look like a better buy.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Harry72 - can I ask how you find this sander??

I keep looking at the H&F (and Carbatec versions), but have never had the chance to use one and see how well they work. I'm mainly interested in finishing solid timber to dimension after jointing/thicknessing, so I'm mainly concerned with things like snipe, accuracy, etc.

I would only ever be taking the last 0.5mm or so off boards, so rate of material removal isn't an issue for me.

Cheers

I bought a Jet 16/32 just recently and am still learning how to use it, but one issue I have had with long heavy boards is with snipe. You really need well adjusted infeed and outfeed rollers for good results. It does present an excellent finish once the system is operating smoothly!

I had a Ryobi thicknesser before I bought my JET JPT-310, so I am very familiar with snipe in all its forms......

Does your drum sander produce similar snipe, i.e. a well defined length of maybe 50mm at the ends of the board, or is it more of an extended taper??

As long as you know the length likely to be affected you can allow for it by leaving components slightly long until sanded. If the more expensive JET drum sander still has the problem, then the Carbatec looks more attractive at the price.

Any particular reason you went for the JET 16/32 ??? I'm waiting for MWE to bring out their "own branded" version, probably from the same factory, but at a cheaper price...

I suppose 'snipe' may not be the correct term for it, but I know what you mean by snipe off a thicknesser (mine is a H&F380) and what I got off the sander is similar in effect if not the same cause. What I'm referring to as snipe on the sander is an effect caused by not feeding a long length through exactly horizontal at all times. I was feeding the timber into the machine by hand, much as you do with a thicknesser, but a thicknesser has a better grip and a bit of a dip when you let go is no problem, but it is with a sander. You finish up with that typical shallow snipe area if there is any variation from the plane of the machines through feed table. If you can rig up infeed and outfeed rollers at exactly the right height then there is no 'snipe' at all on long or short pieces.
I hope that isn't too confusing, it's a bit of a trap for young players but can be overcome with the right approach.

Why the Jet? The extra dollars hurt, but all the recommendations were that it was a better machine so I went for quality over price. So far I'm not disappointed, it does the job it was specifically bought to do without problems and I'm learning about the little tricks necessary for other applications

burraboy - thanks for the feedback, much appreciated

I get what you are saying about the snipe. Its slightly different to a cheap thicknesser without a cutterhead lock, where it is the head moving as timber enters/exits that causes the snipe. For a drum sander its more the fact that their aren't any rollers above the timber pushing it down onto the platten, so the angle at whch the timber hits the sanding drum is critical.

As you say, with suitable infeed/outfeed support, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Probably better to rely on accurately aligned infeed /outfeed support than just hand+eye.

Brush, they have upper pressure rollers but they are not driven like a thicknesser... pity they didnt!