Thread: Drum Sanders: Sherwood 20" vs Laguna Supermax 19"

Carbatec sent an email today saying that they have Laguna drum sanders in stock. (btw I have no experience with any of the quoted machines.)

Thanks MT - yep, got the same email alert from Carbatec.
Last year Carbatec sent my lathe to Sydney tools in Darwin freight free
I only paid $100 freight to get my lathe from Darwin to where I am that way... not sure if they are still able to do that

Timbecon want $400 to get their Sherwood machine to me so there's a minus for the Sherwood
Brings the difference in price to 1K
Question is - is the Laguna 1K better?

The Sherwood comes with a slightly bigger motor and duel dust extractor outlets, I have a Sherwood 500mm Thicknesser which does a good job, but have no experience with their Drum Sander, I still use an old Pad/Stroke sander in my workshop, but would buy a wide belt sander if one came up at the right money

How flat will the slabs be that you will be feeding through this sander ?

I haven’t used a thickness sander on Cooktown Ironwood, but I would be wary about expecting it to take off any significant amounts to get things flat. I could be wrong because I don’t have experience with such a machine.
I think it would be worth your while looking into a router sled like I mentioned in the other thread. These can be built quite easily, and if you already have a suitable router, it won’t cost much in the scheme of things.
Once your slabs have been flattened, a couple of light passes through the sander will give you great results.
I Just use a random orbit sander after the router sled, I am not restricted by the width of the sander, which means I can do full size table tops. Though I would love a thickness sander for smaller pieces..

Thanks Brad.
That sounds like a great option, especially for those table tops
I do plan to use epoxy with these boards so after an initial flattening I would fill (slightly overfill) voids and cracks with resin then finish with a few passes of drum sander to maintain the level surface.

I have the Laguna and it is magic. I upgraded fromban old basic brand to the Laguna and its chalk and cheese. Just remember you are only taking a very small amoung off with each pass od a drum sander (0.5mm) or less unlike a thicknesser.

Cheers Peter

If you are using epoxy I would not use the sander to clean up.
You would be better of with a router sled to flatten first then clean up with the sander.
The epoxy will be hell on the belts.

Great feedback thanks Peter
What model do you have and how old is it?

Originally Posted by woodtryer

I have the Laguna and it is magic. I upgraded fromban old basic brand to the Laguna and its chalk and cheese. Just remember you are only taking a very small amoung off with each pass od a drum sander (0.5mm) or less unlike a thicknesser.

Cheers Peter

Thanks Jim
Is there any risk of the router bit catching the epoxy and chipping it out?

Another great tip
Keep them coming

Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

If you are using epoxy I would not use the sander to clean up.
You would be better of with a router sled to flatten first then clean up with the sander.
The epoxy will be hell on the belts.

Not if you use the Carbitool surfacing bit with TCT cutters on a 3hp router.
3 Flute - Surface Planer - Carbitool

I have a Jet 22/44. Drum sanders are NOT thickness planers, you can only sand off small amounts with each pass other wise it will bog down with the timber stopping and the drum sanding in a deep rut. Then you have the problem with the paper clogging up yes you can clean it with one of the rubber blocks but eventually it has to be replaced. The next problem is the paper breaking usually where it clips into the drum and that means that whole length is now only good for cutting up for hand sanding, so given that you are in a remote location you had better buy a quantity of rolls (don't buy the pre-cut as too expensive) of various grits.
Seems to me that you would be better off buying a floor based thicknesser 15/20" with helical head (yep more dollars) which gives quite a fine/clean plane and then finish off with quality ROS sander.

I have a Sherwood 16" drum sander and as mentioned it is the same as the supermax machine. In fact I watched the supermax set up videos to setup my machine. I've had it for about 15 months and love it, it's a great machine and has some great features. I recently used it to flatten a section of an old 250x75 oregon beam. It has about 5mm twist over 1.2m length. I fixed it to a flat board and wedged it to hold it flat and even, and even though it was oregon it still took 7 or 8 passes to get a flat surface using 80 grit paper.
I could have gone for 40 grit but it still would have taken at least 5 passes. If I had a router sled I would have used that instead. Great machine though for finishing and it is very accurate when thicknessing if your patient.

Rod

Had a chat with one of our local guys who does the epoxy thing and asked about the cutter and sanding.
He indicated that he is torn between both methods.
It does not matter how well he overfills the epoxy it still shrinks and finishes up lower than the timber.
He makes sure he has the timber oversize allowing for the shrinkage.
He will then dress the timber down to size with the carbitool cutter but being very careful when he gets to the epoxy as it can pick up at the slightest hesitation.
He runs through the sander knowing if the speed rate is too high he could melt the epoxy onto the belt. It takes a lot of practice to get right. Different colors do work different due to the hardness.
A lot of his finishing is with the festool rotex in both modes.

I bought the Laguna 16-32 with extension wings and wheels about 6 months ago and it’s just brilliant. I’m not sure how wide most of your boards are, but so far I’ve only needed wider than 16” sanding a couple of times for glued panels with slightly mismatched boards/ cupping (<1mm) and no issues levelling them. With some tuning, left - right level across the roller is <0.2mm and the intelligent feed roller system has quickly taught me the right feed speed for different timber sizes and depth of passes. Keeping the feed roller belt straight took a bit more tuning, but the adjustment screw system could not be easier. Dust extraction off the 4” outlet is efficient. The quick release bar allows easy lifting of the drum assembly and the fine adjustment wheel dials in small increments without any slop. I’ve not yet used the wixey digital readout much, don’t really need it. I think I paid about $2.5k plus $150 freight from Carbatec. But it’s not a thicknesser!