Thread: Drum Sander- belt or roller feed? any preferences

None of the major industrial wood machine manufacturers make a roller fed sander, that's gotta be saying something.

My thoughts are that the abrasive on drum/wide belt sanders produces a lot more force against the feed direction than knives on a thicknesser, so having the entire surface of the piece in contact with a rubber feed belt will give it better feedability (I know it's not a word, but can't think of a better way to get the point across) than 2 or 3 contact patches from rollers. A belt and idle pressure rollers also means that there's no dragging of the underside of the piece on the table which would very likely damage the finish if you're sanding both sides.

Belt and flat plate (underneath) is the only way to go IMHO.

I think you'd have trouble getting the timber perfectly flat using any kind of roller system.

Don't know how I ever managed without my JET 16/32. I only intended to use it with 120 grit paper for final dimensioning/removing machine marks, but its so easy to change the papers that I now go to 180 or even 240 grits as required. For anyone else with one of these machines, the papers supplied by The Sandpaperman (forum sponsor) for drum sanders are excellent quality and long lasting - much better than the JET stuff.

Hi SuperTuck. On the 24th April under the heading of - Some of my stuff - i showed pics of what i called a drum sander & probably more correctly should be called a tube sander as it uses a pneumatic tube inflated to sized rolls. In recent weeks i have used this when restoring wooden toy car service stations.I started off using a combo belt/disc unit after seperating the pieces when suddenly the 'light bulb' hit & i thought - of course, why not use the old tube sander - worked a treat esspecially getting into & around the curves of these old items because you get the flexibility from different pressures you apply to the tube.For the flat/edge areas i used the combo.Just my couple of cents worth.

Originally Posted by OldGrain

Hi SuperTuck. On the 24th April under the heading of - Some of my stuff - i showed pics of what i called a drum sander & probably more correctly should be called a tube sander as it uses a pneumatic tube inflated to sized rolls. In recent weeks i have used this when restoring wooden toy car service stations.I started off using a combo belt/disc unit after seperating the pieces when suddenly the 'light bulb' hit & i thought - of course, why not use the old tube sander - worked a treat esspecially getting into & around the curves of these old items because you get the flexibility from different pressures you apply to the tube.For the flat/edge areas i used the combo.Just my couple of cents worth.

I think that's a different machine entirely.

Indeed it is - I've used one mounted on a lathe. Very good for freehand sanding larger curves.