I do a lot of work with wild grained woods...such as walnut, burl maple, mesquite, etc. My planer often would tear these boards up pretty bad. Plus the planer is not the tool for fixing the cupping and small twists that are epidemic with this type of wood. The 10x20 does solve most of these problems. It's not a planer, so using it to dimension lumber is a long slow chore, but with a good resaw blade on the bandsaw, I can get close to the dimension I want then finish with the sander. I really like being able to take the cup and crown off boards before I resaw them. This ability alone makes the purchase price worthwhile. I made a 1/4" plywood template of the factory strip and buy rolls of sandpaper, clamp the template over a strip on my bench, then cut new strips with a sharp utility knife. Saves a lot of money over buying the factory made ones. Changing the strips at first is a little frustrating, but by the time you have changed them out 6 or 8 times it gets to be routine. The "TOUGH TOOL" that was included with my sander does really help, especially with the inboard side. I had some tracking problems with the feed belt also. A friend who is a machinest, was watching me run some coca bola strips thru the machine, noted that the machine was "racked" in relation to the base. It was such a small amount that I would have never noticed it. With the machine still mounted to the base, he had me loosen all the bolts holding the base together, and the bolts holding the machine to the base. He then "wiggled" the machine and had me retighten the bolts holding the machine to the base, then tighten the bolts on the base starting at the top and working down. Haven't had a tracking problem since.
The four inch dust chute is great, does a good job of catching most of the dust.
I haven't had the limiter kick the motor off yet, or experienced a piece flying across the room as some reviewers have noted. I do tend to use a slower feed rate then is probably neccesary, but this is a hobby so I'm not in any hurry anyway.
The finish, especially on exotic hardwoods is very good, even when I only go to 180 grit.
I can now do in 15 minutes the same amount of work that use to take me a couple of hours. I have only used the double pass method twice now, once on an 18" wide piece of black mesquite and once on a 20" wide piece of spanish cedar. Adjusting the bar was not the nightmare I had invisioned, both pieces came thru as flat as I could ever hope for. This little machine is a very welcome addition to my shop. It is ruggedly built and very solid. I expect to get a lot of years of use out of it and would reccommend it to anyone who is "space challenged", but still wants a good drum sander.
Update...I've found that if you are sanding boards much more than 9" wide, you need to treat them as if you were doing a much wider board...that is to say double pass them. If you try to run a 10" board thru, using the full width of the drum, you will develope a ridge on the inboard side. Not really a big deal,easy to cure.
Still love this little machine, recommend highly. JET 628900 Mini 10-Inch 1-Horsepower Benchtop Drum Sander, 115-Volt 1-Phase
I bought this sander for $500 from Woodcraft for my guitar shop. When I got it home, I unpacked it and was quite pleased by the apparent quality of the machine. It sanded quite well, and the sanding belt was very easy to change. Also, the overload protection worked flawlessly. However, no matter what I did, the belt would not track properly. I called Performax, and they sent me a new conveyor belt (twice), but still, it tracked hard left. This is a problem because eventually the belt eats itself from going off the side of the rollers and jams into a bracket under the table. I took the sander back to woodcraft for repair (they were very cool about this), and they could not get it to track properly either. This has apparently been a problem with the 16-32 as well. Well, to make a long story short, Performax told them it would be 1-2 months for a replacement part or unit. After a month at Woodcraft (who apparently replaced one of the rollers), they gave it back and the darn thing STILL will not track properly. No matter how I adjust the rollers, it always tracks to the left!!! I'm VERY disappointed here- after years of hearing how great Jet and Performax are (they're all owned by WMH tool group), I thought I'd have no problems. Oh well- maybe it doesn't pay to go with the name....I realize that this unit is made in the far east, but I'd hope that Performax wouldn't put it's good name and valuable reputation on such a piece of junk!
After reading many of the reviews I was a little hesitant to purchase this sander but with 30 years of mechanical experience behind me I decided I could fix it no matter what. Was I ever dissapointed - there was nothing wrong with this sander! The tracking was perfect, belt tension dead on, and the sanding drum was set within .003". I build small items. I wanted something to take out planer marks and resaw imperfections on small pieces. It does this perfectly. I don't know how large a hunk of wood would be realistic to try and sand but for small boxes, toys, splines and the like it is perfect.
I've been using this tool for several months now doing both exterior trim (Western Red Cedar) and interior trim (Douglas Fir) for a house I'm building. I've also had a chance to run some Teak and Mahogany through my machine. Overall the results have been outstanding, but the machine is somewhat frustrating to use at times.
My biggest beef is the drum motor thermal cutoff. As previous reviewers have stated, it's extremely sensitive to even the slightest overload. Here's an example: I was running a cedar 2x6 through, using an 80 grit belt. I advanced the depth adjustment ~1/4 turn (~ 1/128th of an inch) after a previously successful pass. It gets about halfway through the board when the protection circuit shuts down the motor. At this point you get to stand around twiddling your thumbs for 1-2 minutes waiting for the breaker to reset itself. Are they joking? 1/128th of an inch in a very soft wood like cedar is an overload? This is typical. I don't know if I got an overly sensitive machine, but I can't recall a session where it didn't shut down at least once on me. I have a planer, so I don't use this for heavy stock removal. If you have ideas about using this machine as a substitute for a planer, you have a mountain of grief lying in wait.
Another frustration is belt tracking. It took a while for me to get the drive belt running true. It seemed like just when you had it, something would stretch or shift and it would go out of wack again. The adjustment mechanism is sort of a Mickey Mouse affair, making the frequent adjustments that much more of a pain. I will say though that the belt now seems to have stabilized and it's been running true for some time now. Luckily I haven't seen any of the severe wear other reviewers have experienced, becuase replacing the drive belt is an expensive proposition.
A final annoyance is snipe, but this has a lot to do with technique. I typically use my machine with roller stands on each side. If a board reaches the end of the stand and drops or bounces a bit, it can produce a nasty mid-length snipe. These cause one to groan especially hard because the whimpy motor means you might be looking at 5-6 additional passes to get rid of the damage. I've now learned to be very careful to support the workpiece as it feeds in and out. Currently I don't have the optional table extensions installed. I have a feeling they would help the situation.
On the upside, the results have been well worth all the effort. This machine leaves an unbelievably uniform surface. It's just the ticket for removing mill glaze and planer marks leaving a surface ready for final finish. The dust collection is also a plus. These machines make a huge amount of very fine dust. Even when only hooked to a shop vac, the dust chute picks up almost all the dust. I would think hooking it to a 4in shop line would be even more effective. Another plus is the belt installation. It goes about as smoothly as you could expect and the Tuff-Tool they include does come in quite handy. Once you get the hang of it, you can change belts in probably around a minute or two. - Drum Sander - Drum Sanders - Performax'
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