24" Drum sander or pad sander

[Chrisyb11]

Hi,

Fairly new here or at least first post.. was just wanting opinions on what would be advisable to buy for finishing wide boards upto 600mm. I currently use a chainsaw mill to mill large timber we get as part of a firewood business, this is then left to season on the farm. I currently use a Wilson 24" planer thicknesser to flatten and thickness the boards then finish using a 4" Bosch belt sander and then onto a ROS.

I would just like to speed the whole sanding operation up slightly if possible and I'm considering either a drum sander like the Axminster senior or similar or a large pad sander. I'd really like a belt speed sander but finances and space don't really allow. We obviously have 3 phase on the farm which helps.

Thanks
Chris

 

[tomatwark]

I would go for a wide belt if you can, you can get fairly compact ones, so don't take a lot of space up a lot less than a pad sander.

The problem is if you are on a tight budget, you may well be buying someone else's problems as there are a lot of switches and air bits which clog up with dust and go wrong, you then A have to fine the problem and B get the parts.

Having never used a one of the smaller drum sanders I can't comment on how good or bad they are and how much time it takes to change the abrasive.

Until August when I finally bought a new wide belt sander all most of our work was sanded on a pad sander, you can get good results with practice, but not as precise and fast as with a wide belt.

If you are interested I have a Hammer pad sander for sale, once I get around to advertising it.

 

[RobinBHM]

Im not sure a drum sander will have the power to sand wide and long boards. The drums are not very big in diameter so the abrasive area is quite small. I must admit yo not having any real experience of these machines, but I think they would be most useful in a fine furniture workshop.

Pad sanders are a great step up from a 4inch makita, but remember they take up a lot of room and rely on operator skill for even sanding. Old machines are often available quite cheap so may well be worth considering.

A single head wide belt sander would be the real solution if you have a lot of sanding to do. For calibrating sanding you would need a sander with a hard rubber or steel roller. Wide belt sanders have both electric and pneumatic control systems with potential for lots of issues. They also need skillful calibrating or they wont feed or sand well. The 2 expensive things that wear out on speed sanders is the feed mat and the roller. An oldish, basic machine may work very well and be surprisingly cheap, but I would suggest only buying one you csn see in action. Also they have big motors, 10kw -20kw sanding motor per head and a feed motor too.

All these machines produce a lot of dust quickly!

 

[furnman]

I have both in my workshop, of course the pad sander or sad pander as they are often known are fantastic machines , very cheap to buy as no one wants them or more to the point do not understand them. It would be my choice. As robin says, a great step up from the hand held.