I contacted Charnwood at the beginning of the week, as I had seen Yandles and others quoting that deliveries of this item would be commencing this week. Charnwood were great. They asked me what day I wanted it delivering and arranged for that to happen - today.
Unfortunately the pallet truck was too large to get up my drive, and the driver said his electronic pump truck was out of battery. So we handballed the near 100KG pallet and box off the wagon, onto my cheap and cheerful dolly. One of the wheels collapsed immediately. A bit annoying as each was rated for 50KG so it should have coped. Anyhoo, we managed to get it up the drive and outside my garage workshop on 3 wheels.
I opened the plywood box top and removed the sides. In there were 2 boxes and the sander itself. Got them all transferred into the workshop and then regressed to my childhood. The usual building of meccano legs was required - I quiet enjoyed it until I realised I had put 2 of the legs on the wrong sides. If you do buy one of these, make sure you check the holes for wheel assembly. After about 30 minutes the legs were complete.
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I then lifted the sander onto the legs and attached the 4 holding bolts. This would be much easier with 2, but as I was on my own, I had no choice. But it is pretty heavy.
I added the dust extractor , and for this I am used my Bosch Gas 35L shop vac with a 100mm adapter. I then fitted the handwheel for the depth adjustment and we were ready to go.
First up was a bit of tulip wood on the factory installed 80 grit belt. I then took a piece of rough sawn and cupped cherry. sanded with the crown to the top and got that level, then flipped it and did the opposite side.
At this stage a few things were evident. The tracking was a smidgeon out. Really easy to fix this - simple screw mechanism on the bed rollers. The next thing was the piece slipping on the bed. After a little trial and error, it was clear that trying to sand too much at once caused slippage. Whilst you can apply a bit of pressure behind the piece and it will go through, it has seemed better so far, to reduce the amount sanded. Next was the feed rate. This also contributes to the piece slipping - the slower the better for this. I have to say though the rubber feed belt could be better in terms of "stickyness".
Despite the above the results were pretty good. At 80 grit, there are clear sanding lines.
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However, the piece was parallel to 0.02 of a mm. Which is more than enough for me. I think having the (removable when required) support at the open end definitely helped this.
Part of the pre-order offer was to receive 5 additional sanding belts FOC. These were another 80g, and one each of 120, 150, 180, 240. Despite having read numerous reports on how difficult it is to change these types of sanding belt, I decided to jump straight in and try the 240 grit. Opening up the case to access the drum is achieved by removing on single machine screw on the dust hood. There are then 2 clips to release either end of the belt, which can then be removed easily. To replace the belt with the 240g, the first thing I did was bend the narrow ends at the points they insert into the inside of the drum. I had seen this as a tip on a YT video on other makes of sander. That done the LHS end went in without any trouble. Winding the belt round the drum caused no issue, and the other end went straight into the clamp first time and the belt was both tight and secure - result.
I then took the above piece of cherry and ran it through 4 times hopefully to see an improvement.
2nd time through
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The sanding lines were much reduced.
3rd time through
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Sanding lines hardly noticeable. It was at this point I was experimenting with the depth of sanding and the feed rate - reducing both worked much better.
4th time through was pretty smooth.
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There were some sanding lines present, but very minor. I would expect a quick hit with the ROS or a scraper would make it perfect.
On first impressions I am happy with this.
It was the right size for me and my space. The price is the cheapest out there that I could see. The build quality is on a par with Axminster Craft / Workshop. It was quiet - the DE was much louder. It was parallel across the piece. The feed belt could be better.
For a relatively cheap Chinese mass produced machine, I was astounded that the only issue I came across today, was a single m8 nylon nut that had no threads, fortunately I had plenty of them in stock.
Ian
