Does anyone own a Jet 22-44 drum sander?

[RogerS]

...and has an old Jet piece of abrasive? I have lost mine and am not convinced my template is correct.

TIA

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Can't help you with the post Roger but am toying with the idea of getting one myself. Would appreciate your opinion on the tool?

 

[katellwood]

See over on the otherside

 

[RogerS]

Thanks, kw.

Bob....it is one of my most used machines. So so handy.

I'm not sold 100% on the Jet's reliability though. There is a rather feeble key (sort of poor man's Woodruff) that locks the motor shaft to the drum. Mine vibrated loose and I lost drive. Then it happened again. And the next time, one of the tiny bolts sheared off by itself - luckily leaving itself with enough meat above the bit it was screwed into that I could get it out with small pliers. This time I replaced all the washers and bits if rubber that over time had sort of disintegrated (and so perhaps I am being a bit unfair to Jet re reliability) and it all seems to be OK.

It also had an annoying intermittent fault in the electronics that fed the drive belt. These electronics provide the 'intelligence' to automatically adjust the feed speed if it is struggling and hence avoid burning. The fault would trip the breaker (so clearly some sort of earth leakage) but never occurred sufficiently often to warrant further investigation. Having said that I noticed the other day that the small LED that is supposed to blink when the 'intelligence' is working was clearly NOT blinking when it should and so maybe something inside the electronics has permanently died. I'll get round to looking into it one day!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

OK so a few niggles....maybe due to the non industrial build (to keep its price sensible) but functionally it sounds to me like you really like it? This notion of doing a board in two passes if its wider than the machines capacity....does that work in practice as it sounds like it might leave a mark or at least some evidence of the change to my mind?

The general idea of just feeding a board through a machine and leaving the belt/random orbit on the shelf really appeals to me.

 

[RogerS]

OK so a few niggles....maybe due to the non industrial build (to keep its price sensible) but functionally it sounds to me like you really like it? This notion of doing a board in two passes if its wider than the machines capacity....does that work in practice as it sounds like it might leave a mark or at least some evidence of the change to my mind?

The general idea of just feeding a board through a machine and leaving the belt/random orbit on the shelf really appeals to me.

Yes I do like it and use it often. Just so handy. I had some solid elm boards about 15mm thick and wanted to convert them to be used as panels in a cupboard door. A bit lumpy in places. Also a bit too small for the thicknesser. A few passes and job done. Don't think (unlike someone on another forum) that you can sand down 1mm at a time. But you can sneak up gradually.

I also used it a fair bit when I was trying top thickness some awkward timber that kept tearing out. OK...it took a lot of time but the sander got there in the end. And no tear-out.

I can't comment on doing very wide boards as I've never had occasion to do it.

And, naturally, once you have had the drum sander for a while then you simply have to get one of these. Another great bit of kit.

Although I have the Axminster version (now discontinued)

With these two I rarely pick up a plane.

 

[Kalimna]

Rob, I have the Performax edition of the 16-32 sander. I have not, as yet, had any significant reliability issues, and mine was bought second hand about 5 years ago.
With regards to doing two passes, I found it quite tricky to set the drum parallel to the bed, and even a 0.25mm difference in height over the 16" (sorry to mix units), say, is quite noticeable on the finished item. I suspect that the reciprocating version of the 22-44 would alleviate this to a large extent.
I wouldn't be without mine, especially the more I find myself moving into luthiery and the time constraints of having a young family, etc.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

mm they do sound good, especially for thin stock where I daren't put it through the thicknesser

 

[RogerS]

My Jet claims minimum thickness of 0.8mm

 

[custard]

I keep looking at the Jet 16-32 but get put off by their claim that with care you can achieve 0.25mm consistency across the width. That's fine for general finishing but not quite accurate enough for dimensioning laminates or finishing knife cut veneered work. At the moment I've got access to a workshop's industrial drum sander that's better than 0.1mm accurate across a full metre width, but at some point I'll need to be more self sufficient and the Jet seems to be the only real option out there. Has anyone used it for preparing laminates, and if so what accuracy levels are you getting? Do you run the laminates through twice at the same sander setting from different ends to try and even out variations and does this work?

 

[Giff]

Slightly off topic but when "thicknessing" thin sections on these sanding machines what grit do you use. By thicknessing I mean taking off 1mm or so of stock. Geoff

 

[RogerS]

custard...an interesting question. When I've put the same board through again, you can still hear it sanding. Now I can put that down to the grit hitting ridges left by the first pass. It would be interesting to know if one kept on feeding the piece through would you get to the point where you can't hear anymore sanding. My gut feeling is that the answer will be no due to flexing in the material even though it has rollers holding it down. Especially the thinner the material. Of course, I could be wrong!

Giff....I use 120 grit and lots and lots and lots of small passes until I get it down to where it needs to be. But it beats having to chuck away an expensive piece of timber because of tear-out.

 

[Giff]

Thanks Roger. Geoff

 

[Kalimna]

Custard - I havent specifically measured across the width, and partly thats because I dont think I have the drum set up as well is might be. However, from using it to thickness acoustic guitar/ukulele tops, I imagine that it gets a little closer to .1 - .15mm. Now, doing this, and once I am in the ballpark, I will check thickness after each pass. I dont bother flipping over, or using both ends, as mentally I picture errors multiplying by doing that. As Roger states, on the second/third passes, you can still hear the abrasive cutting, but less each time.
If you would like, I could do a wee experiment on a couple of different specific widths/thicknesses of timber for you?

Adam

 

[custard]

Thanks Roger/Kalimna. On most drum sanders, apart from oscillating models, you'll still hear it cutting even after multiple passes at the same setting, that's because it's taking "cuts" in line with the grain and there are still plenty of high ridges between the individual cuts made by individual pieces of grit. Many drum sander users pass the workpiece through at a slight angle, say about 10 degrees, then on the subsequent pass angle the workpiece the other way. This cuts much much faster. It's referenced on this video as "sanding on the bias".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_E9sBZbD24

If you have callipers I'd be very interested to learn exactly what thickness accuracy you're actually getting across a specified workpiece width on the Jet.

 

[Kalimna]

Custard - as it happens, that's what I have found myself doing anyway (at a slight angle), though initially for a different reason, i.e. less chance of burning resin/wood gunk onto the abrasive strip.
I will probably be playing around with some acoustic guitar wood this weekend, so can note down some numbers. This might sound like a daft question, but what do you mean by accuracy? Are you interested in thickness of timber as it relates to the mm scale on the machine? Or one side to the other thickness without flipping the stock? Or something different? Also, the pieces I am likely to be using will be in the region of 15" across by about 3-4mm thick in spruce, and a mm or two thinner in hardwoods. I have some 2" wide laminates (leftovers from my Hal Taylor chair build) in the 2-4mm thick region if that is more like what you're after.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[MIGNAL]

I've never used a thickness sander but I do frequent a few of the Guitar making forums where it seems a lot of makers have them. I do seem to recall some of them having an issue with one of the parts.
Anyway, I'd be surprised if you can't achieve accuracy much better than 0.5 mm's across the whole width. I'm pretty sure the Guitar makers would take a sledge hammer to the thing if wasn't much better than that.

 

[custard]

Thanks Kalimna. I'm interested in the thickness difference from one side to another. Jet say words to the effect that with care it's possible to achieve no more than 0.25mm difference from the thickness at one side compared to the other.

 

[katellwood]

Roger

As promised, do these help

Tape at the start of belt


Tape at end of belt


Distance to start of splice (at the end of tape)


Distance to end of splice (at the start of tape)




Width


Chris

 

[Kalimna]

Custard,
Here are some measurements for you. I would have had a further set (in padouk) but I pineappled it up and wasted a lovely acoustic guitar set. Anyway, all timbers are in the region of 16-17" wide, started off around 4-5mm thick and were run through flipping end-to-end, but not side-to-side (so as not to create a 'belly' effect in the event of misalignment of the drum). For completeness, I used SIA 150grit belts. I imagine the accuracy is less with larger grits.

Walnut - 3.25mm/3.33mm at opposite sides of one end, 3.10mm/3.06mm at the other end (I imagine the difference is partly due to differing grain at either end of the board
Spruce - 2.85mm/3.01mm and 2.92mm/2.85mm
Doug fir - 2.79mm.2.87mm and 2.65mm/2.85mm

There is a little variation along the length of the boards, and across, but the accuracy is certainly within the stated limits (and I reckon the drum could be finessed a little more).

I was also thicknessing a couple of neck blanks (2 mahogany, 1 amazaque), and whilst only 4" across, here are their thickness measurements.
Mahog 1 - 20.61mm/20.62mm, repeated at other end
Mahog 2 - 20.41mm/20.40mm, repeated at other end
Amazaque - 24.80mm/24.74mm, again repeated at other end.

Cheers,
Adam