Other tips: Get several large rubber belt erasers and every 10 passes or so, open the lid and 'erase' the drum. It keeps the sandpaper clean and cutting with less heat and burning. When the belt gets clogged and unerasable, remove it, roll it up, and soak in Simple Green. Unroll it and scrub it with a stiff brush. Rinse and allow to dry. It will be good as new. Belts are expensive!
To make the bed parallel with the roller, I would take a board with parallel sides ( the wider the more accurate) and run it through. Then take calipers and measure each side. Then simply adjust the bed until both sides give you the same reading. Not sure if I’ll get a drum sander or a flatmaster. T U.
I agree. I also draw lines across my board to get an early indication of exactly where it’s hitting board and where it’s not, then adjust accordingly. I really don’t think that you will ever get it 100% perfect with this particular machine (cantilever style)… which is why when I run boards through the machine I rotate them, and take shallower passes towards the end of the run. Seems to work pretty well and I get pretty flat boards that way.
I am considering this machine and I want to mount it (without the stand) under my workbench on a slide out. Can you give me the measurements (exact footprint width, height, and depth).
With trial and error that is what I came up with. I think if you always used larger pieces (heavy) it wouldn’t be an issue, but when you go to run anything small and lightweight through it the tension on the rollers can cause the pieces to do weird stuff. Now that I’ve used it even more, I do sometimes put manual downward pressure on the workpiece going into AND out of the drum area, especially on the last few passes… this really reduces the snipe altogether. But when your workpiece is entering and exiting the drum and only under the tension of one of the rollers, and it has significant tension - it doesn’t help the situation. Good luck! Still loving my drum sander!
In my opinion, yes. I don’t think it even takes 3 minutes, but if it does that’s because I’m OCD about getting the paper lined up just perfectly. There is a spring loaded clamp for the paper, so you just press that and it releases, unwind and you’re ready to put new paper on. I buy the premade rolls, then just clip the left side in, roll it on, and clip the other side in. The first few times you do it, you may need to unravel and start over, just learning how to unravel it for best alignment… The spring loaded clamp keeps the paper tensioned so that’s nice. Still enjoy using my drum sander.
Maybe that explains why I just started getting burning. I have 1020 but I also think my sandpaper is shot even after using wax stick on it after every pass. Also I don't think I have it exactly level will that cause issues? I have no idea how to calibrate the machine or anything like that. Every tool I have is always easy to deal with except the drum sander.
