Drum sander or wide belt

[murdoch]

Hi all

I'm looking to buy a 900mm wide drum sander for sanding kitchen doors and frames, possibly the odd window,door and worktop. Does anyone have any experience with a drum sander for more heavy duty use in a joiners shop, or do I really need to spend the extra for a wide belt sander?
Any advice much appreciated

 

[Gerard Scanlan]

My drum sander is slow. I does the job very nicely on wide boards but if you have half a dozen that need sanding on both sides it can take a while to do them. For incidental panels this is not such a problem. In a joiners shop where time is money I think you will find that a wide belt sander which has a far larger surface area in contact with the work piece will do the job a lot more quickly.