Delta Drum Sander (31-250) Review, Detailed and Long
drve...@my-deja.com
I know this is long, but his is a new tool to the Normite world and so I
thought it worthy of a full blown review. So here it goes. In the
future I will post it on my web site for posterity. I hope it posts oks
for most readers.
The Research:
For a long time I have wanted a drum sander. I have a Delta 12.5 inch
planer that works very well, but on some figured woods I keep getting a
small degree of tearout. This tearout does not bring joy to my life.
So not long ago I set my sights on acquiring a drum sander of some sort.
At the local auctions of cabinet shops I have seen some beautiful
Timesaver™ sanders go for a song. But seeing that I don't have 3 phase
power, or 12 foot ceilings, one of these monsters was just not going to
be residing in my shop. The one Norm uses in the New Yankee Workshop
will just have to be the object of my lust from afar.
I looked carefully at the Grizzly model G1066 (in the catalog). It did
look appealing due to its capture of both ends of the sanding drums, and
its 5 Hp (25 Amp, arr, arr, arr!) of sanding power. At 24 inches of
sanding capability it looked pretty darn sexy. The price was right for
my budget (long term if I saved my pennies), but it did have a few
negatives. Someone on the Rec commented that they heard one of these
beasts in action and it was pretty loud. Having a basement shop makes
me consider the noise level of tools very carefully. At 25 Amps draw on
the old juice line, I would need to run a 30 Amp, 220V circuit. Not
hard for me to do, but that many Amps scares me to death. My shop is
small so space is a concern. I want my tools to be movable and capable
of being stored at times. Finally the Grizzly has two 4 inch dust
ports. This is not a real problem for my dust collection capabilities,
but the one place I have two unused 4" blast gates is not the ideal
place for me to locate this Grizzly beast. I could hook it up in
another location that I have in the shop, but things are already crowded
in that location.
Next I looked at the Performax. Several folks on the Rec commented that
the cantilevered arm of the Performax machines does not give a perfect
flat surface across the entire width. I manhandled several models at
the local WoodCraft store, and I was not impressed with how I could flex
the arm up or down. Also, the Performax machines take up a lot of
space, even though there is not much to them. The legs stick out in all
manner of unganglyness, and this hogs up real-estate.
Along Comes Delta:
Then one day, an epiphany happens. An Amazon/Tool Crib of the North
catalog arrives in the mail, and I spot my dream. Not wanting to buy
the first of a new line of tools I decide to wait and see what the
reports are. After a few months a few on the Rec report that they have
received the new Delta sanders, and they like what they see. Others on
the Rec start to report that their Performax sanders are lousy, and they
wish they had not bought them.
Problem is that nobody has these Delta sanders in stock. Even one of
the largest mail order houses (Tools On Sale, aka Seven Corners
Hardware) does not have one for me to look over and manhandle. Finally,
on a nice spring day in March, I find one at Peterson Machinery here in
the Twin Cities. It was love at first sight. She was built strong and
well. My flex test of the cantilevered arm assembly failed miserably.
I could not flex the arm art all. It was made to stay put, bigtime. My
credit card comes out, and I drive away with the last one they have that
is still in the box.
Her New Home
Due to a very early spring thaw I was able to drive my truck around on
my lawn. Thus I backed my truck up to the rear door of my basement shop
and I slid the box down off the truck by myself. I used to a dolly to
get the box into the shop. Upon opening the box I notice that
everything seems to be packed very well. Delta has apparently learned
from their past digressions, and they are looking to avoid the Unisaw
Foam Packing Fiascoes that they had a few years back. The legs are on
top and they come out first. Next to the main unit is the conveyer
table, and that comes out with a little heft. It weighs about 40# which
was unexpected to me. Finally I lift out the main unit. It is heavy
(over 100#) but I can lift it out by myself with a good effort.
The directions say (I know I cheated by reading them) the legs bolt to
the main unit via 6 bolts each. Each leg (there are two) is made for
one end of the machine. They are stamped metal that is very heavy gauge
and super strong. Right away I notice that Delta did some things very
right. #1. Each leg has a cross piece for support. In the top of the
cross piece they have drilled two holes so a person could very easily
add a shelf going from one set of legs to the other. This shelf could
be used to hold sandpaper. Such a shelf is available for the Performax
units, but it is an expensive accessory. For a few pennies you could
add a shelf. #2. Here is a nice touch that I loved. The main unit
bolts to the legs with 6 bolts on each end, and the bolts are carriage
bolts. Delta took the time to cut square holes for the bolts in the
main unit frame. Thus a person just drops the carriage bolts in from
the top and adds a nut/washer combo from the under side. You only need
a single1/2 inch wrench to tighten everything up. Furthermore, you
don't need to reach up into the belly of the beast to get a wrench onto
the top of the bolt to keep it from free spinning. That is very good.
Little things like that mean a lot.
While I was putting on the legs I had the opportunity to take a close
look at the heart of the beast. The motor is a 1.5 Hp motor that is
capable of being wired either 110V or 220V. It comes wired for 110V.
The motor is mounted by being bolted to the frame at the end of the
motor where the shaft is. I believe this is called a "C" or face frame
mount. If you wanted to rewire the motor for 220V, the wiring diagram
is right on the motor housing; however, you would have to remove the
motor from the main unit in order to gain access to the wiring panel.
The way the motor is bolted in place, it does not look like there is
enough room to get the wiring plate off and gain access to the inside.
I am not sure how wiring the unit and motor for 220V would affect the
90V DC motor. Form the wiring diagram shown in the manual it looks like
you could connect the power cord to 220V outlet (after rewiring the
motor) and the DC motor would not be affected. The wiring diagram shows
the switch to be a two pole switch, so it looks like they set the unit
up so it could be wired for 220V. No mention of rewiring the system for
220V is made in the manual as far as I could see. My concern would be
that if you wired the unit for 220V, would the DC motor still only get
110V as it feed to its power converter? At a glance I would say it
would be fine, but I am not an electrician, so don't trust me. As will
be show below 110V seems to be plenty for this beast.
The drum is capable of moving at two speeds. These are controlled by
dual pulleys on the motor and the drum shaft. One just moves the belt
over to change speeds. The belt is a multi groove belt, not the
standard V-belt. Changing the belt does look to be a fairly detailed
operation, but the manual seems to explain it well. I bet the belt will
last a long time so this is not a concern.
The height adjustment for the conveyer table is composed of 4 screws
with sprockets on each screw. A belt runs around all the sprockets and
is connected to the hand crank. The sprockets looked to be plastic, and
the belt also looked to be non-metal in composition. This is a little
disconcerting because I could see how the belt could wear. But, I do
know that it is easy to get sprockets and chain from places like
Grainger or any other of a million industrial supply places. The screw
shafts looked to be 0.5" or there abouts so getting a new chain and
sprocket would be real easy, if in 20 years the belt needs to be
replaced and Delta is no longer around (yeah, right).
At this point I decided to look that the thickness of the metal making
up the main frame and legs. Micrometer measurement of the main unit
metal showed the thickness to be 0.172" to 0.186" in thickness. This is
the reason that the frame can withstand my stress test. This is nice
solid metal and the main unit's components are welded together very
well. That is another thing I should point out, from my cursory lookie,
I would say that the parts are either stamped (like the legs) or cut and
welded/bolted in order to form the unit. The welds look to be of very
good quality. There certainly were enough welds and bolts in the main
unit to hold it together.
Next point in the assembly came the conveyer table. The table is a 20"
by 24" hunk of cast iron type metal. It is a solid 1" or so thick, and
the top is ground to make it flat. I checked the table using a
precision straight edge with the belt in place. Front to back, side to
side and diagonally the table was flatterthanaplatterofpiss. Nice and
flat. If it got out of flat, it looks like there would be enough metal
there to get it reground.
The drive motor for the conveyer is a VonWeise 90 Volt DC motor. Being
90V essentially makes it a "low voltage" DC motor, and as such makes
easy to wire and maintain. It draws 0.45 amps and is 1/30 Hp.
The conveyer table drops in place and is held my 4 machine screws. The
base where the screws attach is tapped so one does not need to use a nut
for the screw. Again this is a nice feature. This also was the only
part of the assembly that went kattywaller. One of the machine screws
did not go in well and it started to get cross threaded. I ran a tap
into the hole and all was well. All the screws went into the hole
nearly all the way by just using my fingers as a screwdriver. An Allen
wrench was then used to tighten the whole thing up. A quick plug in of
the conveyer drive motor to the wire harness hanging out of the main
unit, and I was ready to fire it up.
The dust collection cover is already attached to the machine. It
appears to be blow molded plastic. It definitely has and inside and an
outside part separated by some air. It is not one layer like a Delta
Drill Press pulley cover is. Nice solid plastic and a well placed 4"
dust port.
Starting it up:
I plugged the beast in and I turned it on. It was unbelievably quiet.
If I had to compare it to something I would say it compares to a quiet
jig saw. Definitely about 1/2 or less the noise level of my Unisaw.
The conveyer motor is operated by a separate speed control dial type
switch. I turned it on and it was hard to even hear that the drive
motor was on. This is a VERY quiet piece of machinery. You have to
turn on both switches to get things running. This could be sort of a
pain, but one can feel like Norm when he turns on multiple switches for
his sanding tasks. I got a sort of testosterone rush (arrr, arrr arrr)
by having to switch two motors on instead of one to make the beast run.
That is kinda cool.
Adjusting the conveyer table up and down was fairly easy with the hand
crank. The crank works well. Not super easy like the hand cranks on a
Powermatic 66 table saw, but more like the hand cranks on a Unisaw. It
moves up and down easily and with a lot of turns. Each 1/4 turn of the
handcrank is 1/64" change in height adjustment. That works out to 16
revolutions of the crankwheel to get 1" change in height. Nice!
At this point I looked in the manual to see how the conveyer table could
be adjusted if I needed to do so. It looks really easy. Basically you
can adjust each corner of the table up or down using a locking screw
located at each height adjustment post. Thus if one is not getting a
level sanding across the width of the board, all one would do would be
to raise of lower one side of the table. Simple and easy adjustment
that would take just a minute or two. Delta did good here. I have
heard that Performax sanders are little tough to adjust if the table and
drum are not coplanar.
Putting the Unit to Work and the Acid Test:
The drum comes wrapped with what looks like 120 grit paper. There are
clips on each end of the drum that hold the paper tight. I did not get
any extra paper so I do not know if it arrives in one long roll, or is
precut. Each end of the sand paper is tapered in width in order to fit
into the clip and yet not hang over the end of the drum.
Nest I took a 3/4" piece of plywood that measured 17 inches wide and
17.5 inches long. Along the longer side I marked across the short side
a series of marks at 0.5", 1.5", 2.0", 2.5", 3", 6", 9", 12", 15",
15.5", 16.", 16.5", 17". These marks were placed on both the right and
left sides as reference points for taking a thickness measurement at
these locations. Column one of table one shows these numbers. I spaced
the measurements closer together at the beginning and end of the board
so as to look for snipe.
Next I measured the thickness of the plywood along the left and right
sides of the board and I recorded these numbers. Then I sanded the
board taking 1/4 turns of the crankwheel (1/64") between each pass. I
stopped and measured the results and put the numbers in the columns
marked "first test thickness". As you can see from the numbers the unit
was a little bit off in consistency from left side to the right side of
the board as going across the machine. Note, however, there was no
measurable snipe at all. Yipee! I then adjusted the conveyer table to
lower the right hand side. This was VERY easy to do. A 1/2" wrench is
used to hold the table height screw, and then an Allen wrench is used to
loosen the locking machine screw. The manual has a mistake in it in
that they say that each flat of the adjusting screw will lower or raise
the table 0.10" and it should be 0.010". I adjusted the table and made
some more passes. By round #3 of adjusting the conveyer table (I raised
it first instead of lowering it, so one of the adjustments does not
count) I was able to get it so the left and right sides of the plywood
were nearly the same thickness. These numbers are shown in the columns
labeled "thickness after adjusting" in Table 1. As can be seen the left
and right agree very well, or as least as well as I could measure
plywood thickness with a digital calipers. The plywood was cheapo stuff
so it had some voids and junk in the core, thus getting a great
measurement was difficult.
Table #2 shows the actual difference between the left and right sides of
the plywood after adjusting the machine and taking a bunch of the
plywood off. I would say that for all intensive purposes, this machine
can be adjusted (VERY EASILY) so as to get completely parallel sanding
from left to right on a wide hunk of wood. The adjustment were a snap.
Much easier than I have heard the Performax system is.
TABLE 1:
[+++++LEFT SIDE+++++++++++] [++++RIGHT SIDE++++++++]
Distance Start First Thickness Start First Thickness
From Thickness Test After Test Test After
End, Left Side Thickness Adjusting RightSideThickness Adjusting
0.5 0.725 0.656 0.510 0.717 0.602 0.518
1.0 0.719 0.650 0.501 0.716 0.598 0.499
1.5 0.719 0.645 0.492 0.718 0.596 0.498
2.0 0.719 0.642 0.499 0.714 0.598 0.499
2.5 0.719 0.643 0.508 0.714 0.598 0.490
3.0 0.719 0.642 0.510 0.719 0.596 0.495
6.0 0.720 0.642 0.491 0.719 0.595 0.507
9.0 0.719 0.655 0.494 0.719 0.597 0.507
12.0 0.720 0.655 0.499 0.719 0.596 0.509
15.0 0.717 0.651 0.504 0.720 0.584 0.496
15.5 0.721 0.655 0.507 0.713 0.588 0.501
16.0 0.717 0.655 0.514 0.713 0.585 0.502
16.5 0.720 0.655 0.509 0.713 0.593 0.502
17.0 0.717 0.654 0.515 0.712 0.597 0.520
TABLE 2:
Distance Differnece
From End Left Side Minus
(inches) Right Side
(Inches)
0.5 -0.008
1.0 0.002
1.5 -0.006
2.0 0
2.5 0.018
3.0 0.015
6.0 -0.016
9.0 -0.013
12.0 -0.010
15.0 0.008
15.5 0.006
16.0 0.012
16.5 0.007
17.0 -0.005
A comment about power and the 110V wiring:
When I sanded across the whole width of the plywood I took off 1/64" at
each pass. That is a decent amount to remove at each pass. I also ran
the conveyer belt speed at full speed and the machine did not balk. The
unit did not seem to flex at all when I took off this much wood in one
pass. The dust collection was perfect. NOTHING escaped the lid of the
machine. This could be an artifact of my dust collection system (circa
~2300 cfm). The manual says that you must use dust collection with this
system. I did forget to turn my dust collector on once, and within
about 5 seconds there was a cloud of dust that was amazing. As soon as
I turned my DC system on the dust went away. A tiny bit of dust gets on
the back edge of the board between the board and the conveyer belt and
this drops onto the floor. After removing about 1/4" from my test board
this amount of dust amounted to about 1 teaspoon.
Overall Impressions:
This is a kick butt system. I have no affiliation with Delta Machinery
other than I was once an unsatisfied customer, but they did right by
correcting my previous problem. I have several Delta tools and I must
say that this one is SWEET! Performax is going to be running scared
when more of these start to hit the market. For a small to medium shop
this is a unit that should do very, very well. The cost is very
reasonable and from what I saw it is easy to set up, adjust, and work
with. I will be keeping my unit for a long, long time. I am one happy
camper!
Brook
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
drve...@my-deja.com
>Many thanks for taking the time to write a terrific review!
You're welcome.
>Two questions:
>1- You only mention briefly the clips that hold the paper--this is an
>Achilles heel for the Ryobi and Performax--their's are lousy. Care to
>comment on the Delta's?
I have not had to change the paper yet so I really cannot comment on
this aspect. I did try to release them and they seemed very stiff to my
finger tips. So far the paper has not budged. If it becomes a problem
a little 3M spray adhesive would keep the paper from slipping and that
should help them stay on better (if there were a problem). So far it
looks like they will stay put.
>2- What is the minimum thickness of material the Delta will handle?
The conveyer table will go right up and touch the sanding drum. Thus
you could easily sand veneers. Or you can get some shavings from the
Neanders Hand Planers and make them thinner.
bmik...@idworld.net Wrote:
>Thanks for the intensive review. I've been looking at them but did not
>place an order after the local Woodcraft guys said that there was a
>problem with the machine in early production. I'm now back in the
>market and your review has certainly moved me back to Delta!
I have heard rumor that dealers make more money on Jet products than
they do on Delta. I overheard a salesman at WoodCraft bad mouthing the
Delta Sander about a month ago, and I so I asked him had he seen or
touched one. His comment was that he had not. I found it rather
disturbing that he was making comments about a unit he had not seen.
After getting my unit and trying to think back to his comments, I can
say for sure he was blowing smoke. Maybe the unit has changed from the
early productions, but the unit I got seems well built. The WoodCraft
guy was saying it was built out of cheap sheetmetal (not), the motor was
underpowered (1.5 Hp seems fine), and adjusting the table was horrible
(it took me all of 30 seconds per post). I will be going back to
WoodCraft later this month. I am going to quiz them again and see what
their comments are.
Eddie Munster
Thanks!!!
John Oakes
Bob Steidl
Many thanks for taking the time to write a terrific review!
Two questions:
1- You only mention briefly the clips that hold the paper--this is an
Achilles heel for the Ryobi and Performax--their's are lousy. Care to
comment on the Delta's?
2- What is the minimum thickness of material the Delta will handle?
Many thanks,
Bob Steidl
Brian Mikiten
an order after the local Woodcraft guys said that there was a problem with
the machine in early production. I'm now back in the market and your review
has certainly moved me back to Delta!
Brian
Frank Weston
weeks of hard use.
1. It blows fuses on a 15 amp 120 volt circuit like crazy. There is little
more irritating that sanding half a panel, blowing a breaker, having to
lower the bed to release the stock, resetting the breaker and starting over
by guessing the depth of cut. This situation is not necessarily the fault
of the machine. Maybe I need to wire a higher capacity circuit, switch to
240 volts or install an ammeter. It is something for new owners to be aware
of.
2. The spring clips that hold and tension the paper work well. There is no
need for adhesive. Be warned: the Delta takes 2" strips, not 3" strips
like the Performax. A 3" strip can be made to fit the Delta, but it is a
time consuming job to get it properly positioned.
3. My Delta 18-36 came with a slight flaw in assembly. The in-feed hold
down roller was attached out of alignment on one end. The result was that
the in-feed roller did not contact the stock. I ran a lot of wood through
the sander and got a lot of "snipe" when the wood contacted the out-feed
roller before I tracked this problem down. New owners should take the time
to make sure both rollers are properly installed. My sander still seems to
have a tendency to take a deeper cut when the outfeed roller is initially
contacted by the stock. There appears to be no adjustment for the roller
tension, but I'm working on developing a technique to solve this problem.
If anyone has found and solved this problem, I'd be glad to hear about it.
4. I got my 18-36 from Redmond in Atlanta, GA. I don't know if they still
have them in stock, but they are worth a call.
Frank Weston
drve...@my-deja.com wrote in message <8a148s$9ap$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>ste...@ag.arizona.eduWrote:
>
>>Many thanks for taking the time to write a terrific review!
>
>You're welcome.
>
>>Two questions:
>
>>1- You only mention briefly the clips that hold the paper--this is an
>>Achilles heel for the Ryobi and Performax--their's are lousy. Care to
>>comment on the Delta's?
>
Art .
the Delta, but I was having sniping problems with a Performax a few
years ago and the Performax folks attributed the problem to too much
tension on the hold-down rollers. I backed off on the tension screws
and the sniping stopped.
Art
===
mike hide
>Folks:
>I know this is long, but his is a new tool to the Normite world and so I
>thought it worthy of a full blown review. So here it goes. In the
>ni
hUGE SNIP
t that should do very, very well. The cost is very
>reasonable and from what I saw it is easy to set up, adjust, and work
>with. I will be keeping my unit for a long, long time. I am one happy
>camper!
>
>Brook
>
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
Thanks for taking the time and giving us an excellent revue....mjh
mike hide
wrote:
Well at least for me this finally eliminates the performax,so I find
the delta unit tempting .
the other unit I am considering is the sunhill ,Its about twice the
price but i do like the double roller and oscillating belt arrangement
,kind of like a small timesaver...mjh
drve...@my-deja.com
"Frank Weston" <kla...@annap.infi.net> wrote:
> Here are some of my observations on the Delta drum sander after about
three
> weeks of hard use.
>
> 1. It blows fuses on a 15 amp 120 volt circuit like crazy. There is
little
> more irritating that sanding half a panel, blowing a breaker, having
to
> lower the bed to release the stock, resetting the breaker and starting
over
> by guessing the depth of cut. This situation is not necessarily the
fault
> of the machine. Maybe I need to wire a higher capacity circuit,
switch to
> 240 volts or install an ammeter. It is something for new owners to be
aware
> of.
Yeah, I noticed that I tripped my 15 Amp breaker twice. I thought it
was because Beavis and Butthead had done the wiring for the circuit I
was using. It it a circuit that is close to its maximum amount of amp
draw. But, I did find that if I backed the conveyer speed off that my
problems went away. I can see why the big sanders like Time Savers
usually have 7 Hp or more.
Gary Watts
: was because Beavis and Butthead had done the wiring for the circuit I
: was using. It it a circuit that is close to its maximum amount of amp
: draw. But, I did find that if I backed the conveyer speed off that my
: problems went away. I can see why the big sanders like Time Savers
: usually have 7 Hp or more.
: Brook
The tolerance for the actual trip current varies a fair amount on breakers.
You might try swapping this breaker with another one in the panel and
see if it's any better. They can easily vary by more than an amp.
Gary
J. Ravenel
watching this thread for awhile, I figured that I should report some
additional findings. I just returned from the Charlotte Woodworking show and
had an opportunity to compare the Performax and Delta side-by-side. Several
observations:
> Performax has made some changes to their machine. They now have an easy
adjustment for the cantilever arm. They have also changed the leg assembly
(much smaller). They are also including the legs with the machine and have
lowered the price. ( I should also point out that an older version of the
Performax was at the show - there seems to be some fit and finish
improvements on the new machine).
> The Performax has a 12.8 amp sealed motor. The Delta also has a 12.8 amp
motor (Delta claims a 1.5 HP rating; Performax 1 HP???) but the motor is not
sealed.
> The Delta is belt driven (has two speeds) while the Performax is direct
drive (one speed). On a test piece of 8" walnut, the Delta stalls at about
1/16" cut at full belt speed. The Performax stalls at 1/8" at full belt
speed, but the belt speed of the Delta is a bit faster.
> The Delta weighs significantly more than the Performax (if that means
anything).
> The Delta belt required tracking adjustment more than once.
> Lastly, the show price of the Delta is $739 and the Performax is $839
(both machines are configured the same)
<drve...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8a0kie$sut$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Folks:
> I know this is long, but his is a new tool to the Normite world and so I
> thought it worthy of a full blown review. So here it goes. In the
> future I will post it on my web site for posterity. I hope it posts oks
> for most readers.
>
> The Research:
>
> For a long time I have wanted a drum sander. I have a Delta 12.5 inch
> planer that works very well, but on some figured woods I keep getting a
> small degree of tearout. This tearout does not bring joy to my life.
> So not long ago I set my sights on acquiring a drum sander of some sort.
> At the local auctions of cabinet shops I have seen some beautiful
> TimesaverT sanders go for a song. But seeing that I don't have 3 phase