I am considering purchasing a drum sander for my workshop. In my research, I found a Fine Wood Working article “Drum Sanders for the Small Shop” that compares 7 drum sanders. The article didn’t include the General 24in dual drum sander or the Steel City Tool Works 26in dual drum sander because they weren’t available in time for the article. Both of these sanders are now available and are very interesting. I can’t find any reviews on them.
Will there be a follow up to the “Drum Sanders for the Small Shop” article that includes a review and comparison of these sanders? This is a significant purchase and I would like to get a professional opinion of these machines.
Thank you,
Ken
Replies
Hi Ken,
We're not planning any follow up reviews on drum sanders. Other than posting this question in Knots, where you'll probably hear from a lot of drum sander owners, I'd take our same review criteria and apply it to the new machines you cited.
A few notes about the drum sander market. Steel City has said that a good part of its tool line is based on expired patents and general tool designs used by other manufacturers, with the exception of a few that got redesigned from the ground up (the sander not being one of them). So the Steel City drum sander is likely comparable in features with those already on the market. I can't speak to quality having never seen one in use.
To further complicate things, Performax recently sold off its high-end sander line to a company called Supermax. I saw some of their drum sanders at the IWF show in Atlanta this summer and it looks like they are putting a lot of effort into the drum sander market. So those are worth checking out, as well.
Matt Berger
Fine Woodworking
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