I am in the market for a drum sander, I have been using a ryobi open end sander for a few years and I am really sick of dealing with it. Even at its best right after a set up I don't think the drum has every run truly parallel to the conveyor, and often times is just pathetically far off. open end models are off the table for me, I just don't want to deal with them anymore.
I deal with a lot of highly figured woods and burls, so variable speed is quite high on the list of requirements, I might be able to get by without it but I would not choose to. I do a little furniture work, but primarily I build guitars, so 18" would be the absolute bare minimum width I could use.
This unfortunately seems to mean that I am looking at spending at least 2k for a sander. Those that immediately come to mind are the grizzly g1066z and the shopfox w1678. I have used the shopfox, and it seems to be an excellent machine, though the dust collection doesn't seem superb, the grizzly I have no experience with. I like the idea of having the extra couple inches because I know I have some counter tops in my future and I also deal with some pretty large slabs at times.
For a quite a while I thought those were really my only two options until recently I saw that delta has just come out with a new 26" dual drum sander that after shipping is calculated comes in at about the same price as the grizzly. My concerns with this machine are two fold, first I can find no reviews of it anywhere, its just to new I guess. Secondly it only has a 3 hp motor. I imagine 3 horse would be fine for most applications, but on the off occasion that I am maxing out the width of this machine I think those 2 extra hp that other machines have would be sorely missed. Do you guys think that 3 horse would be way under powered for a 26" model?
I try to buy quality used tools whenever I can, and it makes me sick knowing that I could probably pick up a quality single speed 24" dual drum for a quarter of the price of one of these knew machines, but I can't see anyway around buying new at this point unless I can retrofit variable speed to a single speed machine which may not be possible and is probably not worth the effort.
I'd love to save a few hundred bucks and go with the delta, but not if it won't perform up to par… Any help suggestions, or guidance apreciated. Maybe there is a tool I have not yet considered?
I deal with a lot of highly figured woods and burls, so variable speed is quite high on the list of requirements, I might be able to get by without it but I would not choose to. I do a little furniture work, but primarily I build guitars, so 18" would be the absolute bare minimum width I could use.
This unfortunately seems to mean that I am looking at spending at least 2k for a sander. Those that immediately come to mind are the grizzly g1066z and the shopfox w1678. I have used the shopfox, and it seems to be an excellent machine, though the dust collection doesn't seem superb, the grizzly I have no experience with. I like the idea of having the extra couple inches because I know I have some counter tops in my future and I also deal with some pretty large slabs at times.
For a quite a while I thought those were really my only two options until recently I saw that delta has just come out with a new 26" dual drum sander that after shipping is calculated comes in at about the same price as the grizzly. My concerns with this machine are two fold, first I can find no reviews of it anywhere, its just to new I guess. Secondly it only has a 3 hp motor. I imagine 3 horse would be fine for most applications, but on the off occasion that I am maxing out the width of this machine I think those 2 extra hp that other machines have would be sorely missed. Do you guys think that 3 horse would be way under powered for a 26" model?
I try to buy quality used tools whenever I can, and it makes me sick knowing that I could probably pick up a quality single speed 24" dual drum for a quarter of the price of one of these knew machines, but I can't see anyway around buying new at this point unless I can retrofit variable speed to a single speed machine which may not be possible and is probably not worth the effort.
I'd love to save a few hundred bucks and go with the delta, but not if it won't perform up to par… Any help suggestions, or guidance apreciated. Maybe there is a tool I have not yet considered?