I love my “new” drum sander.
I purchased the used machine for the purpose of sanding shop-cut veneers and inlay woods. However, with a 23-1/2″ capacity, it is capable of so much more. I first cut my teeth with this thing on the side panels. Now it was time to glue up the top — and I was really looking forward to seeing what it could do with the 21″ x 64″ x 1″ thick part.
Joining the top
I started by rough cutting and gluing up two 5/4 boards. Jointing an edge on these long, tall boards was a challenge on my 6-1/8″ Ridgid jointer’s 45″ table. One of the boards had a 1/4″ bow that simply couldn’t be removed on the short table, so I pin nailed it to a sacrificial scrap of 3/8″ plywood and ran it through the table saw.
It’s a “feature”
I had hand-selected three 5/4 cherry boards, nearly 80″ long for the top from Owl Hardwoods. The first one I chose was beautiful and featured numerous streaks/pitch pockets that I just love the look of in cherry furniture. Unfortunately I was unable to find a similarly figured board in the pile. The other two I selected were nice, but didn’t match the beauty of the first…I figured I’d sort it all out in the shop. Well…the time had come and my dilemma was that the beautiful piece was a poor match for either of the others, and the other two, while a better match for each other didn’t match the beauty of the first. After much consternation, and a determination that I simply couldn’t afford to go back to the lot to find its perfect mate, borrowing a term from software development, I decided that the mismatch should be a feature, not a bug.
I recall reading somewhere (maybe from David Marks?) that in a situation like this you should highlight the flaw…which has me now considering doing a simple inlay along the length of the joint. Perhaps in walnut and echoing the “cloud lift” (double, mirrored) from the front and side bottom apron? Or even something more “organic” (a river runs through it?).
Any opinions on that?
Dead Flat
Once the glue dried, I scraped and then planed the joint relatively flat and prepared to see how well the old Grizzly would handle the large piece. It took a bit of work just to place the machine in the room with >6′ of clearance on either side in my small shop…but in the end, I found the space. Since I was using nearly the full capacity of the sander, I was very nervous that it’d track a bit too far to either side and somehow ruin either the piece or the machine or both. While I did manage to brush up against the duct tape on one pass — resulting in the need to stop and re-secure the paper, I didn’t experience any significant issues. The front roller’s 100 grit paper loaded up enough to require replacement part way through the process, and I did notice some loading that I was unable to completely clean up on the edges, but overall this was an extremely satisfying experience with no burns or noticeable snipe and resulted in an absolutely dead flat top! Awesome!
My only issue was with the dust collection — for smaller pieces like the side panels, the collection was absolutely sufficient. However, with this piece, while there weren’t great clouds of dust or anything like that, I did wind up with a thin film of dust covering all of the shop surfaces. Prior to this, per a fellow LumberJock’s recommendation, I had replaced the flexible hose that came with the sander with rigid PVC. I’m sure this helped, but it still couldn’t quite keep up.
After sanding, I routed a bevel around the bottom edge with a plunge router.
Winding down the build phase
Finally, I installed some small stop blocks on the dust panels behind the drawer fronts to prevent them from recessing too far into the carcass and some “tip blocks” at the top corners so the drawers won’t dip significantly when fully extended.
Next up: Inlaying the top(?) and then sanding, sanding, sanding and more sanding!
I love craigslist.
Around the same time I begain the planning for my new shop, I started using “igoogle” for my browser homepage. I also discovered a couple cool “craigslist” widgets for igoogle that display search results for preconfigured searches on your homepage. So, for example, if I’m considering the purchase of, say, a new dust collector, I’ll add a craigslist “dust collector” search widget to my igoogle homepage. Since I basically live online weekdays it’s unlikely I wouldn’t catch a new relevant post within, say, the first hour of it being posted. This is how I got my rather old but very competent 3HP 2100CFM dust collector for $225.
This is also how I found my latest workshop addition: A Grizzly G1066 24″ Dual Drum Sander for $400. Brand new these machines run about $1,500 delivered. Now the machine I got is not even remotely new — the copyright on the original manual (yeah, the seller had the original manual) is dated 1992 and the “Grizzly” logo is an older variety — but the insides were all there and it runs beautifully. Included with the machine were 2 new 150 grit rolls and 1 new/1 half used 100 grit roll of sandpaper. Considering these cost >$40 each, I figure I actually paid less than $300 for the actual machine. I consider this a very good deal, indeed.
Heavyweight
Finding the machine was the easy part. Since this machine weighs in at over 400lbs., getting it home and in place was a bigger challenge. I was lucky that the seller had a couple pretty big guys pickup up some other equipment a the same time as I. The 4 of us (seller, two “big guys” and me) basically muscled the thing into the back of my minivan. I nearly passed out on the last push and am fairly certain that, were anyone looking, they’d have seen my eyes bulging out of their sockets. I’m not kidding. Fortunately, lowering it out of the van, with the help of my brother-in-law and a couple of his football-player sons turned out to be a bit easier than I’d feared…and my load-in ramp for the shop easily supported the weight. It was in!
Power
When designing the shop, I saw fit to have a total of (4) 240V circuits installed. Two 15A and two 20A. One is for the dust collector, a second for my Grizzly 17″ bandsaw. This leaves one 15 and one 20A circuit available. The 5HP motor on this monster demands 240V @25A minimum. This meant installing a new dedicated 240V/30A circuit in the shop. Since I already had the 10ga. wire on hand, the expense was minimal (some 1/2 conduit and a breaker) and in about 2 hours yesterday afternoon I installed the new line.
Test Run
Much of the comments I’ve read on drum sanders dealt with frustrations over either burning wood like cherry, or tracking issues. These left me a bit apprehensive about what I would encounter when using this tool. I decided to track down a current owner if I could and solicit some advice. Based on some of his prior posts, it appeared that a fellow “Lumberjock” (Todd A. Clippinger) who’s work I’ve admired (and partially ripped off) had at one time owned this exact model. Todd took the time to provide me with a weath of information that I was able to put to immediate use. (Thanks!) So, after loading up the drums, per Todd, with some new 100 (front roller) and 150 (rear roller) grit, I picked up the first >9″ (minimum length per docs) piece of scrap I had at hand — a ~6″W x ~10″ long piece of cherry. I fired up the dust collector (a must) and then the machine and ran this piece through, cranking up the table until the piece just made contact with the drums. It was a beautiful sound and after multiple passes without any burn or apparent strain on the machine, I eyed the cherry and walnut side panels I’d recently completed for my current project.
Beautiful! A few passes and the joints were dead flush and looking gorgeous. I’m hooked!
Did I mention how I love craigslist?
UPDATE: Todd responds here with some additional helpful information and photos.
