Opportunity to buy a Performax Drum Sander

I dont have one but I would buy it, for that price you cant go wrong. If you dont buy it you’ll be kicking yourself for not taking the leap. I know I would.
I’m sure if you find you done use it or dont like it you can sell it for what you have into it.
Just my 2 cents.

-- Frank Auge---Nichols NY----"My opinion is neither copyrighted nor trademarked, but it is price competitive."

I don’t know anything about the unit you are looking at. So I did a search and found this link
You would possibly use it for flattening doors or glued up panels.
Also thickness sanding.

-- If we learn from our mistakes, I'm getting a fantastic education.

Buy it. I’ve got a Ryobi and they re great. You do get straight sand lines and you need to touch up the boards with a ROS or scraper. But it does a good job of leveling out your wood. I’ve used it when resawing wood and I want to get rid of all of the saw marks.

Also if you have figured wood that you can’t run through a jointer and planer because of the chipout. This sander is the solution.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Sound like a great deal to me. I have a Performax 22/44 and I love it. I reviewed it on this site.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Gentleman what kind of dust control goes with these drum sanders? I take it there is a shop vac connection?

-- AllWood

There is a 4” port on the top. A shop vac with a reducer would do the job it you don’t have a real dust collector.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

If it is good shape, buy it. If it turns out you don’t use it enought to justify your cost, you can sell it for what you bought it for. It shouldn’t be that hard to get that for it down the road.

Let us know if you buy, and post pics.

Shannon I have the Performax 16-32 drum sander and I use mine for nearly every project that I do. I use mine for every panel glue up – it will absolutely get your board dead flat (just be sure to scrape off excess glue before running it through to save you belts). I also use it after I run my boards through my planner to “fine tune” them and get a ready for final sanding on them. I typically keep a 220 grit belt on my sander. One word to the wise though – you will absolutely have to have decent DC hooked up to it. I have a Delta DC with 4” hose hooked up to mine. It creates a blizzard of dust if you don’t have the DC on it. I’ve got the cheap Delta DC machine on mine and it does just fine.

I got a pretty good deal on my Performax – paying about $760 for it from a Mfg. Rep at a show. The deal you are getting is just too good to pass up – like DGunn said, you can always recoup your costs if for some reason you don’t like it (I can’t imagine that you won’t).

-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/

get it.. if you don’t like it, you can sell it on ebay for more than you are paying.

-- making sawdust....

I went through the same internal debate and decided to buy that exact one. I set it up this weekend and it is a charm. As cajunpen mentioned, you can create a lot of dust with it, so be prepared. I would say get it. It is worth what they are asking, so you will always be able to sell it for that, but I doubt you will.

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Another use is if you are resawing veneers with your bandsaw, the drum sander is a great way to get them to final thickness, as the planer will typically destroy anything that thin. I’ve seen David Marks do this on his Wood Works show several dozen times, or so it would seem. Good luck!

-- Pat Mulry, Dallas, Texas || www.lonestarpokertables.com

I find it hard to believe that I ever built anything without a drum sander,I would not do without one ever again.Once you get used to them you will love them.I have used a SuperMax 24” commercial line of Performax and it’s unbelieveable what you can do.

Cowboy

i don’t have one but the wood whisperer has one and he says that its good and for that price I’d say go for it.

I’ve got a 16/32 sander and like all other woodworking machinery it has its faults. I’ve gotten some bad press on other forums when I bad mouth the 16/32 when I list the faults but I’ll try again here on LJ.
First off, this machine will not work to dimension lumber. It can only be used to take of a minute amount of wood on each pass. Whenever I try to take too deep of a cut, the circuit breaker on mine kicks out. But, the machine is great to level out glued up panels and with the open end you can go as wide as 32 inches. (That is, if you have the head adjusted accurately.) Many users also have had problems with the tracking on the feed belt. I think this might have been an issue with the older units, because mine had perfect tracking right out of the box.
Another problem I have with mine is that the right clip on the roller will let loose at the worse possible moment! Now this is really aggravating especially right after you put on a new strip of sandpaper. When the paper comes loose from the drum it not only ruins the paper, but also the lumber.
Don’t get the idea that you will be able to put 220 paper on it and expect to put finish on your project without additional sanding either by hand or with a orbital sander. There will always be lines in your lumber. but, if you use something like a 120 grit, then kiss it with a orbital sander the lines will disappear very quickly.
My advice is like everyone else, at that price grab it and run!
One thing I’d like to add is that I will use mine on every project that I make.

-- Jim

So did you buy the 16-32 and do you like it ….?

-- Mike in Bonney Lake " If you are real real real good your whole life, You 'll be buried in a curly maple coffin when you die."

I Popped for the 22-44 Performax – Which came in a box that Said Performax on it but the unit inside was labeled JET. Auto feed control and heavy duty, took a bit to tweak it in for sanding things wider than 22” but it works wonderfully and I am glad I bought it. You WILL need some serious dust collection though, after assy and while I was setting it up I ran a small test piece thru without the DC connected and was nearly choked out of the shop for all the sanding dust, won’t ever do that again. I think you will be pleased. Don’t use mine every day but it has been indispensable on the two Tabouret tables I just completed for a friends wedding gift.

-- So Much Wood - So Little Time! --

That’s a very good price, especially if it comes with extra sandpaper rolls and the added infeed/outfeed tabels. IMHO unless you build it into a longer table setup or only do short work the I/O tables are a must-have. If you want to do any bandsawing of shop-made veneer the machine will be a godsend. They’re also good for working with tearout prone woods that the planer chews up too much – get it close with the planer and finish with the Performa. You might see the term abrasive planing tossed about on Performax marketing lit but Fageddaboudit. A dust collector is better but I used one for a long time before I had a DC with it just hooked to a decent shop vac and it was able to keep up with most of it.

-- Use the fence Luke

Shannon-

I have a Woodmaster 38” enclosed unit; no experience with an open-ended unit like the one you speak of. Here are my thoughts, and a couple of the things for which I use my sander:

1. Flattening glued panels, face frames, doors, butcher block tops. I like to dimension my stock to about 1/32”-1/16” oversize so I can run it through the sander to get to final dimension. Take very light passes; multiple passes on the same setting, and a low-to-moderate feed rate. If you try to take a heavy pass your (panel, door, top, etc…) will come out looking like a poorly designed roller coaster track with visible dips and dives, burn marks, blood and carnage, etc… 2. Flattening/smoothing resawn veneers. I cut my veneers on the bandsaw at about 3/32” thick and run them through the sander to get them to about 1/16”, removing the saw marks, etc… along the way. Again, light passes are key. Otherwise, you will see visible gaps when you try to glue your veneers to the substrate, such as a quartersawn leg veneer to a leg blank. 3. NEVER, under any circumstances, use your sander in lieu of a planer. This thing is NOT a thicknesser. If you have to take off more than 1/16” of material, take it to the planer. You will run your power bill up because these things don’t take alot of material off at a time. You run the risk of kick-back, burning, overheating/warping the head, and it will take all day….

With all that said I really like my sander. I have built a half-dozen or so butcher block counters and countless sets of kitchen cabinets and it is really a time saver if used wisely.

Hope that helps… Check out my sander here.

Regards,
Jarrod

-- Jarrod, Eagle Nest, NM http://anthologyfinefurniture.wordpress.com