Replies

1. 
   Lataxe | Sep 22, 2007 11:52pm | #1

   Jeff,

   In my experience a drum sander will still leave very fine parallel scratches.  (I used one as the post-planer and pre-ROsander tool for years). However, these fine scratches are rapid to remove with an RO sander (or a scraper).  :-)

   A drum sander will produce (when properly set-up) a perfectly flat and thicknessd piece of timber. But you can't really use them as a final finishing machine, unless you paint what you have sanded.  Those fine scratches will pop under a transparent finish.

   They do save a lot of physical effort but sometimes it is pleasurable to make such effort.  (I have come to like planing, for instance).  On the other hand, they are not super-quick.  You must take off only 0.1 - 0.25mm at a pass.  Even just removing planer ripple marks or tear out can still take a good while.

   You also have to be careful of burning stuff - especially timbers that are very hard or have lots of gum or sugars in them.

   Lataxe

1. 
   jhounshell | Sep 23, 2007 05:22am | #3

   Thanks for the input. What you are saying is, I could re-saw a slab of curly maple, run it through the drum sander, then finish up with a RO sander, and be done. That sounds like the ticket to me. Like I said, I'm not interested in working up a swet with a jack plane, or any other hand plane.I'm going to start shopping soon.Thanks.

1. 
   Lataxe | Sep 23, 2007 03:58pm | #8

   Jeff,

   I have resawn large planks on the bandsaw then cleaned them on the drum sander.  Frankly, it took too long to sand the saw marks out as a resaw blade of few tpi and big hook tends to leave a coarse kerf mark.  If the resawn stuff was done with a finer blade (ie leaving a finer kerf mark) then the drum sander will get rid of it in less passes.

   Generally I used to use the drum sander to take off any blemishes left after the planer (eg, track marks from those little blade nicks, any tear out or any ripple marks). Also, when absolute accuracy of thickness is required, the drum sander can better the planer (0.1mm versus about 0.2-4mm, respectively). 

   Now I plane them with a nice Marcou instead, for that hand made look.  :-)

   I have sometimes resawn on the tablesaw with two passes at half cutting depth over the top of the blade (and riving knife, note - wouldn't want to resaw like this on a TS without a proper riving knife and also hold downs).  The drum sander will take TS saw kerf marks out a lot quicker than it will bandsaw kerf marks, as the former tend to be much less obtrusive.  Of course, the TS blade kerf is wider than that of the bandsaw.... you lose timber either way.

   One advantage of the drum sander is that you can (if you're careful) get it to sand a part to within a very fine tolerance.  Certainly 0.1mm tolerance is possible (the limit of my vernier's accuracy) but I suspect that you can take less than 0.1mm in a pass just by leaving the sander's depth setting alone and letting the absolute minimal touch of the sandpaper take a tiny bit more on a second pass. 

   But do you need that sort of accuracy with wood?

   Anyway, as a method of getting dead flat and unblemished figured woods, it works a treat.  But then so does a high angled Marcou smoother.  The plane is actually a bit faster; but you do have to push it about yourself and it is unlikely that it will leave the "aerospace flatness" (to quote a certain lover of C18 bumpy stuff) that a drum sander will.

   Lataxe

2. 
   BruceS | Sep 23, 2007 02:57am | #2

   Another important "to do" with a drum sander is to very frequently check the sanding strip paper and hit it with the gum rubber eraser.  Depending of lumber species, It may be every pass,  the rosewood family and lacewood are bothersome for me.

   Work Safe,  Count to 10 when your done for the day !!

   Bruce S. 

    

1. 
   jhounshell | Sep 23, 2007 05:23am | #4

   But, you like the drum sander, correct?

1. 
   BruceS | Sep 23, 2007 02:56pm | #7

   I don't like it,  I love it.   Just remember it's not a planer and will never run at Indy.Work Safe,  Count to 10 when your done for the day !!

   Bruce S. 

    

2. 
   BruceS | Sep 24, 2007 05:02pm | #9

   Just used my little 10/20 performax again yesterday to sand down some Hickory I resawed.  6bf of 4/4 Hickory into 18sqft of thick veneer.

   Don't be afraid of the 36grit paper, It makes "quick" work of 3 hook resaw marks.Work Safe,  Count to 10 when your done for the day !!

   Bruce S. 

    

1. 
   Lataxe | Sep 24, 2007 09:46pm | #11

   Bruce,

   I confess I never used below 120 grit in my drum sander (usually 180).  Perhaps I have been daft to assume that the scratches left by coarser grit would be correspondingly more difficult to sand out with the RO....?  Or do you change the paper in the sander to a finer grade and give it another pass? 

   It will be interesting to hear and one may even be prompted to rush out to get some of that coarse suff and give it a go.  :-)

   Lataxe

1. 
   BruceS | Sep 25, 2007 02:33am | #12

   I use the drum sander just as you would your ROS, Go through the grit progressions.  But that 36 is some nasty stuff and does get some chewing done quickly.  There are  24 grit strips available but that is a little over the top for me,  may as well just tie the boards to the back of my 4X4 truck and drag them over a gravel road.Work Safe,  Count to 10 when your done for the day !!

   Bruce S. 

    

2. 
   frenchy | Sep 25, 2007 06:56pm | #14

   Lataxe,

     of course use the course grits! With practice changing grits can be done in a few minutes and don't throw away the old paper,  reuse it!  I hang mine over a board in order of grit and sometimes the grits will last for thousands of bd.ft. if used that way..

    (on the other hand once they are used up, toss them don't waste your time trying to get a few more passes out of the paper..

3. 
   Kaleo | Sep 23, 2007 10:19am | #5

   If you plan to dimension the wood with the drum sander man are you going to be there for awhile. Also you will never be able to get the wood square if you are only going to use a drum sander. I would run it over the jointer and then thickness to just over what your final dimension should be, then run it through the drum sander to get ride of the machine marks and chip out. Then hit it with the RO and that should be good.

   Kaleo

   http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com

4. 
   philip | Sep 23, 2007 10:39am | #6

   Jeff,
   I am assuming that you have a thickness planer at least , then.
   Certainly a drum sander can do a good job on pre - dimensioned timber, i.e timber that that has been machine planed, but it comes a poor second to a Wide Belt Sander. However, these are costly and costly to run , but it depends on what you are wanting to do.Small wide belt sanders are available for home users, but they still require compressed air and ducted dust extraction.
   If you are only doing small work then a drum sander is good- I have a friend here who made his own drum sander to sand box parts-he makes small boxes- he can straight onto 400 grit hand held paper after his drum sander. So a wide belt sander would not be appropriate in his case.
   Again, depending on your needs, a Stroke Sander is a highly versatile but little known machine outside of industry.
   You need to tell us more of what your intentions are.

   Philip Marcou
1. 
   RodWolfy | Sep 24, 2007 05:28pm | #10

   OK Philip,

   What is the difference between a wide belt sander and a drum sander? Is it how the sandpaper goes on the drum? I'm assuming that an expensive 'Timesaver' is the same as a Performax?

   Rod

5. 
   frenchy | Sep 25, 2007 06:49pm | #13

   jhounshell,

    I have one, a Grizzly that works nicely for me.. the trick to using them on "wild" wood is to start with a coarse grit  (60 grit) paper and switch to the finer grits.. only when the board is near where you want it to be..  use light passes and a lot of them keeps the sandpaper in good shape for a while. the tiny scratches left when you go to the finish grits clean up nicely with a Random orbit sander and 150 grit followed with a 220 grit..

     I use mine on 22 inch wide boards of oak burl and burl is an extremely tough wood plane so the use of the drum sander.. My Grizzly is  an 18 inch wide open ended one which allows me to to smooth boards up to 36 inches wide..

     I've gotten to the point where I can take the roll of sandpaper off in a few minutes and set it aside for future use.. I don't throw them away just because I switch grits..

1. 
   jhounshell | Sep 25, 2007 07:44pm | #15

   That is what I was hoping to hear. Thanks, I'm going to look into purchasing one.Jeff

1. 
   frenchy | Sep 25, 2007 08:02pm | #16

   jhounshell,

      go to Grizzly .com but don't forget to order several rolls of differant grit paper at the same time.. I think it comes with a 80 grit on it..

2. 
   jhounshell | Sep 29, 2007 03:43am | #19

   Just curious, and off the subject, but where do you find your burl wood from?Jeff

1. 
   frenchy | Sep 29, 2007 07:57pm | #20

   jhounshell

     The sawmill I get all my wood from.. it came in, a giant of a tree that was all burl..   You can tell they are all burl because the trunk looks so lumpy and there are about a zillion little twiglets growing out of it. The sawmill put the first log (of three) on the carriage and made a couple of passes and was going to reject it.. They saw for grade and they didn't think there was any wood that would be anything other than low grade from this whole tree.  They actually had it set up to go thru the chooper!

     Foolishly I offered them the market price for FAS wood.  (I could have bought it at 3B price levels and they still would have been happy selling it to me).. but the sweet part was that now any wood they had that had fiddleback or any particular character they've set aside for me.. I've gotten some birdseye red oak and a lot of fiddleback black walnut  plus I think you've seen my bathroom done in raised panel with fiddleback maple.  (10 cents a bd.ft.!)  I actaully got a total of 9 6x6 burl timbers which I have placed around my house in high visability spots, plus the 917 bd.ft that will become the inlay for my flooring..

    I wish I could have found a saw mill that could have cut all the way thru the tree,  I would have had some 60 inch + wide boards of burl..

1. 
   jhounshell | Sep 30, 2007 07:36am | #21

   I have a really good mill close to my house, and the prices are great, for domestic woods. But I think they have buyers out all over the state, and ship logs in. These purchasers are not going to buy an ugly tree, like the ones you mentioned.They let me go through the wood piles, and I've found some really nice spalted maple. But so far, no burl. Don't expect to. So, I'm forced to pay top dollar on the 'net or try to find deals on ebay.I have some in-laws who own several hundred acres in the hills of Kentucky. They have said I can come in and cut anything I want. One of these days I'm going to head down there with a chainsaw, looking for a big, burled up tree. We'll see how it goes I guess.Jeff

1. 
   frenchy | Sep 30, 2007 09:22pm | #22

   jhounshell,

    good luck hunting,  your best chance  to find something great is in valley's that haven't been logged off because they are too steep or something..

2. 
   jhounshell | Oct 02, 2007 08:01am | #23

   Good advise, thanks. Do you know, can you spot birdseye from the outside of a tree, or does it have to be cut to find it?JH

3. 
   frenchy | Oct 02, 2007 05:11pm | #24

   jhounshell,

    Supossedly if you really know what you are looking for the bark pattern is a giveaway. Most birdseye seems to come from northern locations like Upper pennsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin..

    With the millions of board feet my saw mill goes thru it's extremely rare to them.

6. 
   KeithNewton | Sep 26, 2007 03:53am | #17

   Jeff, learning to sharpen your jointer and planer for figured wood will also take care of the problem, and do it faster than sanding. Also it doesn't cost anything, but maybe that is not what you want.

   The chip-out problem is caused by too low of an angle on the cutting edge as it contacts the wood. For figured hardwood, if you sharpen with a face bevel, so that the cutting edge is about 10º positive from a radius from the center of the cutter-head, you can cut fiddle-back maple without any chipout. If you keep the knives sharp, then there is very little sanding needed.

   I am a stickler for keeping my knives sharp, yet while I also have a nice stroke-sander, I usually skip that process if I get a good enough face, then go straight to the RO.

   I just came home with some ribbon-stripe African mahogany that my supplier had dressed, and left the face a ragged mess. I can see the tell-tell dull orange indicating reaction wood, so my first step was to rough out my parts a bit larger than normal to allow them to stress-relieve. I then did a quick hone of the knives of my jointer, while they are still in the head.

   This wood is nasty enough that when I was band-sawing the curved sides, there was enough fur hanging out the bottom of the cut, that it was a little hard to feed. Yet, when I ran it over the jointer, I was getting as good a face as you would expect from any good tool with a pristine wood.

   For a lot more information on sharpening figured hardwood, google it with Charles G Schmidt Co. You will find more information than you will be able to absorb in several readings, and it is all based on many years of experience from some of the best in the industry.

1. 
   jhounshell | Sep 26, 2007 08:26am | #18

   I'll look into that. I have enough trouble keeping my carving gouges sharp, the thought of sharpening a 12" planer blade frightens me.JH