Having a smaller size shop for custom cabinetry and creating high end custom furniture. I often look for creative ways to improve on time consuming or difficult tasks, in this case sanding hardwood glued up panels like for table tops. Not having space for a large belt sander I explored other options. In the past, sometimes I had hardwood vendors knock down large laid up tops on their large belt sanders. After much research, when I looked to take on the task internally, it came down to a drum sander, of which there are pros and cons, since I had no space for a belt sander. Keep in mind taking pride in my work means the work needs to come out perfect, no marks, lines or issues.
Well I took the plunge into a 16-32 drum sander, a SuperMax, not the least expensive nor the most expensive unit, but with solid reviews. I did physically check out the unit at my vendor. This size drum sander was to afford 32" wide laid up tops and possibly doors. I would have preferred the 18-36, but again space was at a premium. The unit developed an internal drum issue after a short time, but SuperMax was really great and replace the entire unit. To accommodate the fine dust I invested in a dedicated separate wall hung drum dust collector. Feeling I am embarking into making hardwood panel glue ups easier to finish internally, off I go.
First, let me say if you are not used to a drum sander, it does take some time to get the feel of how they work. I experimented with a variety of components from cabinet and furniture parts to panels, plywood to hardwood to softwood. One thing became apparent, the belts did not last very long, particularly with hardwoods. Glue joints are really bad on the sanding belts. Glue builds up quickly on the belt and cannot be removed, creating grooves in the surface being sanded. Even without the glue, the sanding belts can easy clog up (even with constant use of the gum stick) resulting in the worse case as burning the wood surface either by feeding at too high a rate or taking off too much material in one pass or both. Setting the unit to correctly remove material, maximizing material removal and extending belt life while shooting for a nicely finished surface can be challenging. I did find greater success was with coarser grits. Unfortunately, even intermediate grits, like 150, were much more difficult to work with. Even finer grits using a drum sander leave deeper scratches than using comparable grits with a power hand sanders. I never found the drum sander to provide a finished surface that I did not have to undertake significant hand power sanding to remove its scratches. Essentially, I found I was removing more material off a component section than I was in pre-drum sander use to get the same appearance. A bit of a waste of wood section not really saving time to prepare the components. Set up is cumbersome and time consuming at best due to setting and running multiple passes to confirm settings.
The worse was yet to come. Under close inspection, hardwood components were found to be sanded unevenly, even short 18" long pieces. The best way to describe the surface deviations mid board was not unlike planer snipe at the ends when planing on a surface planer. Keep in mind the drum sander settings and belt were confirmed adjusted multiple times. The snipes were mid board and not at the ends. I had invested in the infeed/outfeed tables to stabilize feeding components. Some would vary from a short dip to a longer 2" long surface impact. This was prevalent with hardwoods. Did not see this in softwoods or light plywood sanding. In an attempt to eliminate this sniping, the speed was fluctuated and the material removal became very small requiring many passes to finish the component. Too slow a feed only made it worse. Too fast and the auto slow down mechanism would kick in with the same result plus the sanding roll would clog up. Not a great outcome. The drum sander is really not a fast production unit, not like a large belt sander. Feeding and sanding is a slow and tedious operation if many components are required sanded. Setting the sander to the correct board thickness and setting the initial pass, required several trial by error approaches even though the drum sander boasts a board thickness preset lever. Never found the thickness digital gauge to be of much use. This process was always a time consuming experience. Too many tedious processes were added by using a drum sander compared to simply doing the work by hand. Of note, is the sander did operate adequately for narrow pieces, less than 1 1/2" wide. When wider pieces or panels were used, the performance was substantially reduces and finish quality deteriorated. The sanding load on the wider pieces and panel seemed to be too much for the sanding roll on the drum to handle..
Generally speaking after a year and a half working with a drum sander, I found the drum sander with dedicated dust collector was a waste of time and resources. I could be more efficient with a scraper, 1/2 sheet power pad sander (multiple grits) and hand sanding (which the hand sanding was still required with the drum sander) than by using the drum sander. The only positive use for the drum sander became standardized sizing splines for joints or sanding poplar hidden components. Never had a use for sizing boards since the planer was more efficient. The drum sander belts were much more costly (either precut or roll belts) than the sand paper I used by power and hand sanding. Using the planer provided much better results than by using the drum sander. The planer is a no brainer to use, faster and provides a really nice finish on its slower setting. However, the drum sander was to be employed on larger width components, but due to the drum sander poor quality of finish the unit mostly takes up valuable floor space. I also was never comfortable with the wider mid portion thickness resulting from sanding wider panels on a drum sander, something that does not occur on wide belt sanders.
Now I am sure there are fans and affectionados that swear by the drum sander and will criticize me for not using it correctly one way or another. I use and have used quite a variety of light and heavy millwork equipment, from many quality equipment manufacturers, successfully over many years. I avoid low end equipment since they typically do not work well, or become a one use and discard situation. Many sources were used during this endeavor with many different approaches applied to this drum sander experiment. But for my operation, the drum sander was wasted space, time, material and investment, plus much higher maintenance required than my previous process or other equipment.
That all said, I would recommend anyone looking at drum sanders to be cautious about a drum sander as an alternative to a wide belt sander. They are not! If you do have the space and resources, go with the wide belt sander instead or no drum sander at all. A drum sander may be more involved and costly than completing the same task by hand as I have learned and is certainly not a viable substitute for a wide belt sander. The drum sander will also not perform the fine grit sanding finishes well that you may require despite reviews and advertising to the contrary. Unfortunately, I still do not have space for a wide belt sander. Que sera.
Well I took the plunge into a 16-32 drum sander, a SuperMax, not the least expensive nor the most expensive unit, but with solid reviews. I did physically check out the unit at my vendor. This size drum sander was to afford 32" wide laid up tops and possibly doors. I would have preferred the 18-36, but again space was at a premium. The unit developed an internal drum issue after a short time, but SuperMax was really great and replace the entire unit. To accommodate the fine dust I invested in a dedicated separate wall hung drum dust collector. Feeling I am embarking into making hardwood panel glue ups easier to finish internally, off I go.
First, let me say if you are not used to a drum sander, it does take some time to get the feel of how they work. I experimented with a variety of components from cabinet and furniture parts to panels, plywood to hardwood to softwood. One thing became apparent, the belts did not last very long, particularly with hardwoods. Glue joints are really bad on the sanding belts. Glue builds up quickly on the belt and cannot be removed, creating grooves in the surface being sanded. Even without the glue, the sanding belts can easy clog up (even with constant use of the gum stick) resulting in the worse case as burning the wood surface either by feeding at too high a rate or taking off too much material in one pass or both. Setting the unit to correctly remove material, maximizing material removal and extending belt life while shooting for a nicely finished surface can be challenging. I did find greater success was with coarser grits. Unfortunately, even intermediate grits, like 150, were much more difficult to work with. Even finer grits using a drum sander leave deeper scratches than using comparable grits with a power hand sanders. I never found the drum sander to provide a finished surface that I did not have to undertake significant hand power sanding to remove its scratches. Essentially, I found I was removing more material off a component section than I was in pre-drum sander use to get the same appearance. A bit of a waste of wood section not really saving time to prepare the components. Set up is cumbersome and time consuming at best due to setting and running multiple passes to confirm settings.
The worse was yet to come. Under close inspection, hardwood components were found to be sanded unevenly, even short 18" long pieces. The best way to describe the surface deviations mid board was not unlike planer snipe at the ends when planing on a surface planer. Keep in mind the drum sander settings and belt were confirmed adjusted multiple times. The snipes were mid board and not at the ends. I had invested in the infeed/outfeed tables to stabilize feeding components. Some would vary from a short dip to a longer 2" long surface impact. This was prevalent with hardwoods. Did not see this in softwoods or light plywood sanding. In an attempt to eliminate this sniping, the speed was fluctuated and the material removal became very small requiring many passes to finish the component. Too slow a feed only made it worse. Too fast and the auto slow down mechanism would kick in with the same result plus the sanding roll would clog up. Not a great outcome. The drum sander is really not a fast production unit, not like a large belt sander. Feeding and sanding is a slow and tedious operation if many components are required sanded. Setting the sander to the correct board thickness and setting the initial pass, required several trial by error approaches even though the drum sander boasts a board thickness preset lever. Never found the thickness digital gauge to be of much use. This process was always a time consuming experience. Too many tedious processes were added by using a drum sander compared to simply doing the work by hand. Of note, is the sander did operate adequately for narrow pieces, less than 1 1/2" wide. When wider pieces or panels were used, the performance was substantially reduces and finish quality deteriorated. The sanding load on the wider pieces and panel seemed to be too much for the sanding roll on the drum to handle..
Generally speaking after a year and a half working with a drum sander, I found the drum sander with dedicated dust collector was a waste of time and resources. I could be more efficient with a scraper, 1/2 sheet power pad sander (multiple grits) and hand sanding (which the hand sanding was still required with the drum sander) than by using the drum sander. The only positive use for the drum sander became standardized sizing splines for joints or sanding poplar hidden components. Never had a use for sizing boards since the planer was more efficient. The drum sander belts were much more costly (either precut or roll belts) than the sand paper I used by power and hand sanding. Using the planer provided much better results than by using the drum sander. The planer is a no brainer to use, faster and provides a really nice finish on its slower setting. However, the drum sander was to be employed on larger width components, but due to the drum sander poor quality of finish the unit mostly takes up valuable floor space. I also was never comfortable with the wider mid portion thickness resulting from sanding wider panels on a drum sander, something that does not occur on wide belt sanders.
Now I am sure there are fans and affectionados that swear by the drum sander and will criticize me for not using it correctly one way or another. I use and have used quite a variety of light and heavy millwork equipment, from many quality equipment manufacturers, successfully over many years. I avoid low end equipment since they typically do not work well, or become a one use and discard situation. Many sources were used during this endeavor with many different approaches applied to this drum sander experiment. But for my operation, the drum sander was wasted space, time, material and investment, plus much higher maintenance required than my previous process or other equipment.
That all said, I would recommend anyone looking at drum sanders to be cautious about a drum sander as an alternative to a wide belt sander. They are not! If you do have the space and resources, go with the wide belt sander instead or no drum sander at all. A drum sander may be more involved and costly than completing the same task by hand as I have learned and is certainly not a viable substitute for a wide belt sander. The drum sander will also not perform the fine grit sanding finishes well that you may require despite reviews and advertising to the contrary. Unfortunately, I still do not have space for a wide belt sander. Que sera.