"Burn Baby Burn"drum sander 16/32

I did have that problem when I first got my 22/44. To solve it I just skow down the feed a little bit, and
keep the drum clean with one of those belt cleaners. The kind that is like a big eraser.

It’s been at least 3 years now and I have not had that problem since.

It probably would happen more if you were to run softwood through it vs hardwood. I can see
that ANY sap at all woudl mess things up.

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

I’ve had it happen with cherry. I don’t take a very big cut. Less than a 1/4 turn on the adjustment. I’ve never done Gary’s method of slowing it down.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

I also have had it happen with cherry. Cherry tends to burn easly, taking light cuts helps but also watch out for the belt if an edge starts to ride up over itself. I run cherry though on the fast side.

-- Tom D

As for ‘fixing’ do you mean the wood, or the belt? I’ve taken the belt off the machine, soaked it in a soap solution and then brushed off the burned area with a small brass wire brush. Rinse and hang up to dry.
I’ve also removed the burned on ‘whatever it is’ by rolling the belt in a small radius in my fingers and a lot of times this streak will pop off the belt.
Also, I save my old belts to be cut up into small pieces if I need some sandpaper to hand sand some unusual profile. I’ve already cut a old belt up to make a flap sander.

-- Jim

I’ve had a burn sometimes when the belt loosened a bit and doubled over itself slightly. A little readjustment and tightening usually took care of it.
I agree with the small adjustments too. I usually take only 1/8 or less turns per run.

-- http://ragtimewoodwork.blogspot.com/

You have to feed fairly slow and take light cuts. As Gary said, get one of those eraser things. It really helps the belt life, too.

-- Maplewood, MN

Woodworking author Nick Engler (60 books), Has also been frustrated with sanding tools, His exact comment is, “I have evaluated a great many motorized stand-alone belt sanders and belt/disc combos and find that there are none, nothing, nada, zip that run at the correct speed. It’s as if all the sanding tool engineers in the world caught the same virus (except ours, because they’re dead) and it destroyed the part of their brains that makes the connection between rpm and fpm. I really think the CDC should look into this.”

The real solution to the problem is variable speed.

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

I’ve got an old Ryobi And never use anything less than 80 grit. Anything finer, burns or loads up so fast it’s more effort to change the paper than use the ROS to get rid of the lines left by the 80 grit. Light cuts, like Karson says, less than 1/4 turn, unless you are sanding narrow stock. Slow down the feed at the first sign of the machine struggling to get the wood thru the head. Different woods will burn or load up at different feed rates, most of what I run is QSWO, but when I run Cherry thur the sander I slow it down even more & take even lighter cuts.

Sometimes it seems so s-l-o-w but it sure is faster than most other methods of flattening a glued up assembly, or thicnessing some figured wood. At least at the price. A big ol’ wide belt would do the job better and faster, but till the tool fairy decides to bring me one I’m going to have to put up with slow!

-- http://www.grandprairiewoodworks.com

“The real solution to the problem is variable speed.”

I’ve been wanting to do that with my General, 220V edge sander and Jet120V belt/disk from the first day I ran them. Is there a way to modify them?

-- http://www.MSRDboard.com , http://www.riverviewwoodworking.com

I find different woods behave differently in my drum sander. The various rosewoods all seem to burn.
I have reduced to 1/12th of a turn for each lowering of the drum, and frequent use of the cleaning stick. Seems that the more oil there is in the wood the more likely it is to burn.
I also increase the feed speed so that it minimises the time exposed to the sandpaper.
I recently was using bubinga and used the planer instead of the drum sander.

MSriverdog:

Why don’t you ask Nick Engler this question. He has a great depth of woodworking knowledge. He can be reached at www.shopsmith.net/forums/

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

You got me thinking…....I have a seperate variable speed router control unit….and a smal belt/disc sander…....hmmmm.

May just have to do some playing around tomorrow :)

-- If you can't set a good example, at least serve as a horrible warning... www.rarewoodcreations.com

Earlier I posted a message about glue build up on the belt of a wide belt sander.
From reading this I think it is the same church just a different pew.

-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.