Thread: Drum sander advise please!

Hey Ian, The Jet is going to be the better quality so if you dont need the extra inches of the other model then i say go the Jet.

i bought the Hafco a couple if months ago and I have been nothing but disappointed. I have subsequently put a Spiral head on my thicknesser and think that if I had done this first I would never have bothered with a drum sander

Thanks Damienol, Have read a lot about the Hafco none of it good. I have a spiral head thicknesser as well ,however I rip a lot of thin boards with a ripping blade thus the need for a drum sander. I am leading towards the Jet. You only get what you pay for.

I have the Carbatec version of the Hafco ds1632 which is as far as I know the same machine.
I have not fired mine up for a while now but used it quite heavily in the past.

Apart from the dust port being too small,which I modified to 4" have not had any major issues.

I do not know what peoples complaints are regarding the machine but depends what you expect from it.
Don't be expecting any huge material removing passes with it, 0.25 mm is pushing it.
Making very light passes is the norm for these machines.The main reason i chose this machine,apart from price was that it will accept considerably thicker timber than the Jet machine.
Whether the jet machine of the same size is worth double the price is not for me to say although I suspect there might not be a big difference performance wise.

I purchased a spiral head thicknesser some time back which eliminated the need to use it as much,so is gathering some dust these days.

I have the same machine as Mark - and the same experiences.
I use it a lot. I have a spiral head too and they are good when new but once they have done a few kilometres then the same need for a sander returns - unless you can afford to constantly update.

My experience is that some criticisms arise because people use too finer grits and try to take off too much at once. They soon bog down and start burning and can't get the dust out quick enough.

Really, I've got no substantive criticisms of it.

Originally Posted by Arron

....people use too finer grits and try to take off too much at once. They soon bog down and start burning and can't get the dust out quick enough.......

That's it.
Course grit, light touch, slow the feed rate & be patient.

I use 120 grit most of the time.

I,Ve got Carbetec version and usually stay with 100# paper, slow and steady

I have the Jet sander, and it works really well, nothing to complain about. Changing sandpaper is very fast, so I got a few grits for different purposes. If you put really coarse grit, e.g. 36 or 40, you can remove quite a bit of material. E.g. I had a chainsaw-cut brown mallee burl slab, dry as a bone, and the sander had no trouble making it flat in a few passes. On the other hand, putting boards through up to 320 grit then makes it an easy job to complete sanding with random orbit sander using finer grits.

I also have the Jet 16/32; no problems provided you don't want to remove too much material once, as others have stated. Very happy with the machine. I don't go to 320 though staying to a max of 180 and finishing with my ROS.

thankyou all for your advise. I am still considering the Oltre style machine but it appears to be a relatively scarce machine in Australia. It has a locking device on the open end for extra stability. The alignment of all these machines is a big factor . Rephrased, the ability to stay aligned is important. Any input?

My Jet came perfectly aligned from the box. I used it under a year - so it still is perfectly aligned, but not sure how long before any adjustments are needed. The machine is very solid.

Originally Posted by ian baldwin

thankyou all for your advise. I am still considering the Oltre style machine but it appears to be a relatively scarce machine in Australia. It has a locking device on the open end for extra stability. The alignment of all these machines is a big factor . Rephrased, the ability to stay aligned is important. Any input?

If by alignment you mean the distance between belt and drum, across the width of the drum, then I usually prefer mine to be misaligned. By that, I mean that I prefer it to be a bit higher on the right then the left. I think the difference is only about 0.2mm - not really sure. I find that as I usually work with narrow strips of wood (usually under 60mm ) I can get a better discrimination this way then by touching the adjustment wheel.

Generally the last pass through the sander needs to be done twice anyway as the belt is rubber-like material and therefore compressible. So if like me you are interested in fractional-millimetre accuracy then you need to eliminate the effects of belt-compression with a second pass through. By reversing the item for the second pass you eliminate the effects of the misalignment.

On my Carbatec machine, I find it does stay as I set it.

I do acknowledge that the jet appears to be a better built machine, however.

Cheers
Arron

When I first sand the timber I have the drum set higher than the thickness of my timber and pass the it through while the machine is running,Gradually winding down the drum and stop winding when it just starts to lightly contact the panel,this gives you a starting point without having to rely on the thickness scale.

When sanding very wide panels that require passing the timber through twice on each setting it is wise to have the drum slightly higher at the open end or you can end up with a groove sanded right down the middle of the timber.

To do this there are shims on the base of the machine that need to be removed which lowers the platen at that end.

From my experience I have only used 3 grits in mine 80/120/180.
I would say forget the 80 as it is too coarse for most jobs unless you have very uneven panels to sand.
120 is a good general purpose grit and 180 is about as fine as I would ever want to go as the risk of clogging and burning is too high with finer grits.

Then I would just finish off with Random orbit sander.

Originally Posted by mark david

Don't be expecting any huge material removing passes with it, 0.25 mm is pushing it.

That's normal for any drum sander. Even the 30hp wide-belt at work starts to complain above 0.3mm, but it'll do 0.6mm with 80 grit if it has to.

Also +1 for the grit comments; 120 and 180 for general work and 80 if you really need it.