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Drum sander burn

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3K views 13 replies 11 participants last post by  Arron 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I was running an oak board through my Craftsman drum sander at the 5 speed setting when a black crayon looking line appeared down the length of it. I ran the board through about 5 or 6 times before the mark appeared. I was turning the table height adjustment up about a quarter of a turn each time. I was using 120 grit resin bond aluminum oxide cotton cloth open sandpaper on the machine at the time. There is something on the sandpaper which caused the mark. Here is a picture.
What would have caused this to get on the sandpaper? Was the speed too fast or slow? Wrong type of sandpaper?

Glen
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Your link didn't work, but what you saw is fairly common. Some tips (without guessing what caused the problem): slow down the feed, take a lighter cut, and clean your belts often with one of the gum type cleaners. One pother thing, this will be more common without good DC, so if you don't have that, triple all the earlier points. You may be able to save your belt by cleaning the burned streak off. I've numerous methods and never found any that worked as well as I like, so I just replace it and move on. A popular one is soaking it in Simple Green. Like I said, it didn't work that well (IMHO). My sander is a Delta, and I'm not familiar with your model…..but those tips almost always solve it. Another tip might have been use a coarser grit (most people see it with 180 or so) but I run 120 all the time now, but almost never go finer than that.
 
#4 ·
DC - dust collector and my performax will burn some woods to a crisp if I don't hook up the DC. The paper just clogs faster and then it's sawdust embedded in the paper rubbing on the workpiece = burn marks.
 
#8 ·
1/4 turn is a pretty heavy cut and probably caused this. I soak strips with glazed stripes like your overnite in Simple Green, then spray em off with hot water and they usually come clean.
 
#11 ·
I have a Jet 16-32 which will burn the wood if I try to take off too much. I only take off one eighth of a turn and then I run it through at least two more times, moving it across the belt if it's a narrow enough board. The multiple passes seem to remove scratches from the first pass and it will take out the burn marks, too. When I started, I had LOTS of trouble with this tool. My problems were either trying to take off too much wood on a pass or not having the paper tight on the drum. If it's not tight, it can overlap and give you a burn there. JL7 said the same, only he didn't take so long.

Hope this helps.
 
#12 ·
I think the problem may have been from taking too much off at a time. The sandpaper was not overlapped anywhere on the drum so I don't think that was the problem. Another cause may have been from too much dust built up on the inside of the machine (even though I was using my dust collector). I may have to vacuum out the inside of it often and raise the feed table up 1/8 of a turn at a time instead of 1/4. Thanks to all of you for the advice!
 
#13 ·
I too have had this problem with my Performax 16-32. Apparently there is a lot of heat build up with a drum sander. I surmise that this is one of the main advantages of a wide belt sander-the belt has time to dissipate heat as it makes its way around the drums.
 
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