I have the Preformax 16-32 drum sander. I have used it on a lot of small projects but recently built some cabinet doors using some clear old growth fir for the center panels. Sanded it down from 1/2″ at glue up, to 3/8 with a shadow line to raise the panel and leave a 1/4″ edge to fit into the door frames. The panel is about 15″ wide, the ripples run completely across them.
I sanded first, with 38 grit, then 80 and finally 120. They looked fine. However when I got the finish on, I noticed that all of the panels had ripple lines, like the drum was bouncing, but not uniform the full length of the panel. It may not have been a bounce, but something was making a visible ridge across the panel.
Anyone have a solution?
Curt
Replies
First hunch would be feed speed. Is this model adjustable? if so you might have it set too high.
Did you random orbit sand after running them through the drum sander? This ridge is typical of this kind of sander. On widebelt sander there is a platen which gives a more suitable finish sand. A slower feed will help but not completely eliminate the problem in my experience.
Curt -- I have the same machine. Even at 180 grit there remain fine lines from the abrasive which show up after finishing. You have to use a random orbital sander or scraper to get rid of them. As to "ripples", I've never had that problem, but I would make sure that the pressure rollers are set correctly (see the manual), the feed belt is taught, and, as said above, that you're not feeding the work too fast. A lot of problems can be avoided by slowing down the feed rate, especially at the finer grits. Finally, if your abrasive looks uniformly worn and you've checked the above, call the tech support guys at Performax (Jet). Good luck.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled