Recommendation for drum sander

I have the Jet 16-32… great machine. I put a hook and loop system on it (Grizzly purchase) and it works greg.
I recommend this one.

-- Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Make your own.
Do a search here on LJ’s. There are many good and some great ones.
Here ’s my contribution, but as I said there are lots.

-- Paul M ..............If God wanted us to have fiberglass boats he would have given us fiberglass trees. http://prmdesigns.com/

Before I bought mine I looked at all of the drum sanders on the market and spent a great deal of time reading and watching just about all the reviews and how to videos that are out there on many websites. I also considered building my own.

I eventually decided on the Jet 16-32 and I couldn’t be happier. As I said I considered building my own but when I found the Jet on sale I couldn’t beat the price compared with the cost of materials and time to construct. That’s not to say you shouldn’t build one because there are many fine examples on this site that look to be very well thought out & constructed.

Consider the pros & cons of both home built and manufactured.

-- www.thepatriotwoodworker.com Proud Supporter of Homes For Our Troops

I looked for deals and different brands for years before I bought. I bought the Supermax 19-38. It is actually designed by the same guy that designed the Jet performaxes…he fixed a few problems and built an awesome machine. I have used it both open end and within the drum and it has performed very well.
Mike

I also went with the Supermax 18-36, it is a great machine. It is very large in size. I am currently building a drawer box under it for sandpaper rolls, and other shop junk, to use my shop space to the max. It also requires a good 4” dust collector.

-- Bob, Lewistown, Montana. Kindness is the Language the blind can see and deaf can hear. - Mark Twain

I was at a tool sale at our local Acme Tools and the President of the company was there as a Rep. (They had 4 events the same weekend and he filled in at this one) I had a long conversation with him. It was interesting….long story short…He and his Dad owned Performax and sold it to Jet. They made Performax for a while too but it was an identical machine to the Jets and they did not have the distribution so they were higher and they gave it up. The Patent ran out 2 years ago and he designed this machine based on correcting some of the issues that the Jet has. Not that there are a lot…just fine tuning. The Supermax company has been around 10+ years and are established….early on Jet sold the patents for the bigger models where it is not open ended back to this guiy as they were not going to manufacture them, so he has been making those very successfully for 10 years, and waiting for this patent to expire. They are easy to work with, he even gave me his card and told me to call him if I had questions….

I have only had mine since Nov….but I wonder how I got along without it the last 25 years!!!
I would recommend the infeed and outfeed tables. I also would NOT recommend their wheels, they are over priced, a lot.

For it’s size I believe it is cheaper than the Jet units too….give it a look.

Oh there is a Performax that makes juny hand tools for discount stores, too…no affilitaion.
Mike