Review: General 15-250 Dual Drum Sander, 24" (long post)
Vermind
bought a General 15-250 M1 horizontal dual drum 24" sander. I am going to add
a review of the sander and why I bought this particular brand and model of
sander. The usual disclaimers apply: I have no affiliation with any of the
companies mentioned in this review other than being a customer. Your mileage
may vary, not a member of FDIC, and you if you don't like what I say, then buy
a sander and do your own homework. So there, nah!
This is also posted on my web page at:
http://www.geocities.com/drvermin/Toolreviews/GeneralDRumSander1.htm
First off I have owned the Delta 31-250 sander since they were first
introduced. I think I got the second one to arrive in the Twin Cities. It is
a great sander and I am reasonably happy with it except it has a whimpy motor.
These sanders are made for very light sanding only. They are made for the home
shop type of use. One day while I was sanding for 4+ hours straight without
ever shutting the motor off, I burned it out. It overheated and the thermal
overload switch did not kick out and so it conked bigtime. It was under
warranty so Delta gave me a new motor. Because I spend 2-3 hours per weekend
sanding with my drum sander I decided it was time to look for something bigger.
Open sided sanders are nice, but I wanted something with a decent motor and
both ends of the drums captured. I also strongly desired dual drums so I could
have two different grits of paper on each drum.
I checked out the Grizzly G1066 24" dual drum sander. I got a recommendation
of a person from Grizzly, and I talked to two other coworkers that have this
model of sander. They all hate their sanders. So I moved on.
I checked out the Performax sanders. The 25" Double drum with smart control
(613003) was $3599 from Amazon. It looked like a space alien and the price was
a little steep. It was the only one in its class (that I saw) that had a 5Hp
motor and dual drums. The Performax Pro Shop Single drum had a whimpy 1.5 Hp
motor and a price tag of $2199 from Amazon. That was ok, but no dual drums and
a whimpy motor caused me to pass on that one. The Performax 22-44 was a 1.5 Hp
open sided sander for $1999 which is a very expensive copy of the Delta drum
sander. The Delta is staying in my shop so this model would not be gaining me
anything.
Next came the Woodmasters. Everyone agrees that these are nice sanders. The
model 2675 is a single drum sander that sells for $2199. The kicker is that I
would have to pay $295 for shipping thus bringing the price up to ~$2500. Toss
in a mobile base, a reversing switch and some extra paper and I am over the
$2700 mark. Sure it has a 5Hp motor, but it also has a single drum. Yeah you
can put one paper on one end of the drum and another paper on the other end,
but that still means two passes to accomplish what a dual drum can do in one
pass. There was also the comment on the Rec that the Hook & Loop paper gives a
little thus causing waves in the finished surface of the wood. The Woodmaster
dual drum model 3820 has a sticker-shock price of $4795 so that was totally out
of the question.
Then I stumbled upon the General 15-250 (www.general.ca). It looked like a
solid piece of machinery, and best of all I could see one locally in two
different locations. I went to one of the places and saw the beast and it was
nice looking. They had a floor model that had some fork-lift box-hockey damage
that they were repairing. They had the sides off of the machine so I could see
the guts. First off I noticed that the height adjustment mechanism of the
table was a rod and gear system. Where most sanders have chain and sprocket
system, this one had solid rods and gears. The benefit to this is that rods
never stretch like chains do. As the chains stretch there becomes some "slop"
in the adjustment mechanism that raises and lowers the table. So when you go
from raising to lowering the table or vise versa, than handle moves but the
table does not. With the General sander if you turn the handle the table
moves, period!
The rest of the machine is built like a tank. The posts that hold the top of
the machine are about 3" in diameter and the frame is made of very solid hunks
of metal. My web page has photos of the various parts up close including the
rods and the frame. Sorry about the pictures being so large, I cannot
determine how to crop them. You can even see a photo of the sander with one of
the "Killer Brown Dogs of Death" in the photo for scale.
http://www.geocities.com/drvermin/woodworking/GeneralDrumSander/
The local dealers said they had placed several of the sanders in local good
homes and shops, and everyone loved them. I was offered a chance to visit a
couple of the shops but when I heard the price was $1500 (cash and carry) I
said I had seen enough. One dealer even offered to let me sand some boards on
the sander. They would have had to move it into their back room, but they did
offer. I was concerned with the fact that it has a 3 Hp motor and not a 5 Hp.
There is the chance of adding a 5 Hp one on my own, but I did not want to go
that route at the current time.
So I bought the sander and they loaded a VERY large crate onto my truck. The
sander comes packed well and it is surrounded on all sides by 3/8" thick OSB
plywood. Fork-lift box-hockey players can still do damage, but for the most
part is it well protected. The box is very heavy and it weighs all of 550+#.
My neighbor and I were able to slide it off my pickup truck and into my shop.
We did remove the both panels of the sliding glass door that leads to my shop
because the box is about 34+" wide and ~48" long. It is also over 50" tall so
it was a bit gangly.
We unpacked the sander and set it up on a Shop Fox mobile base. I needed the
36" extension bars to get the proper width to accommodate the sander base.
This sucker is about 42" long on its side as it sits on the floor. The front
to back dimension of the sander's footprint was a bit more problematic for the
mobile base. We had to cut ~1/2" off of each end of the bars for the mobile
base. The sander is really quite short from front to back, so the base was a
bit large. I put the two non-swivel casters for the mobile base on the left
side of the sander, and I put the swivel casters on the right side of the base.
This way I figure I could stuff the sander into corners along the long axis.
This presented another little problem. The front swivel caster can spin just
fine, but the back swivel caster was not made to go on the back bracket of the
base. Thus it could not turn 360 degrees. So I had to drill 4 new holes to
accommodate the swivel caster on the back right side of the mobile base. Now
the caster can swing 360 degrees.
The fit and finish of the sander are very nice. There was one small rub mark
where something scuffed the paint on the dust collection chute. There was also
one smudge on the paint in the back corner, and this covered about 1 square
inch. The metal edges were rolled nicely except for one place in the back by
the motor. I am not sure if this was intentional or just an oversight. Bottom
line is that it has the metal work and paint quality of a top line Taiwanese
made tool. One nice feature was that in many places where one piece of sheet
metal was connected to another they added a 1/8" thick piece of sticky foam
between them. This kills all metal on metal rattle noise and thus makes for a
nice quiet machine.
The magnetic switch is a nice little contraption in that it has an E-Stop main
shut off. This is a nice little "keep OHSA happy feature" that I kind of think
is cool. The sander comes loaded with 80 grit on the front drum and 120 on the
back drum. The directions are a bit lacking, but you really don't need any to
speak of. The only assembly I had to do was place the crank handle onto the
proper post and then mount the switch. The crank handle just sets in place and
that is so it can be taken off if you want to for opening the top hood. If you
don't want to change the height adjustment yet you need to change the paper,
you can pop the handle off, change the paper, and then pop the handle back on.
The table will thus never move. The handle can also go on the right side of
the sander, but another location for mounting the switch assembly would have to
be found.
The only adjustment that the directions say to do it to adjust the drums to be
"parallel," and adjust the tracking of the drive belt. Adjusting the drums to
be parallel is a bit of a misnomer. What they mean is to adjust the back drum
up and/or down so that they are both the same height above the table. For this
I placed a straight piece of BB plywood onto the table and I used a planer
gauge to check the height of the drums above the table. Performax sanders have
a gauge that helps one set one drum relative to the other, but the dealers I
talked with said you really want to confirm this measurement with a planer
gauge. So the drum sander is a tool that would be best served if you have a
planer gauge along with it. The height adjustment for the back drum is a
simple Allen screw adjustment that is really easy to reach up on top of the
machine. A slight tweek of the screw and I was certain the two drums were dead
set at the same height above the table.
Tracking of the drive belt was a bit more of a time consumer. It was centered
just a little off of the middle so I twiddled and twiddled and twiddled for
about 15 minutes until I had the thing tracking dead-nuts center. The problem
with belt tracking is that you make an adjustment and then you have to wait
forever for the whole thing to shake out and assume a new position. The drive
belt moves at a rate of 6 to about 30 fpm. The higher-end feed rate is really
moving.
The motor drive belts are dual belts. The motor sits on a plate that can be
adjusted up or down via screws so one can put a whole lot of tension on the
belts should they desire. The belts are well tensioned right out of the crate.
I connected a 4" dust hose that was 50' long to one of the two dust ports and I
turned the beast on. It purred like a kitten and was very quiet for a monster
of its size. It has a hum much less than a running Unisaw. I put a board
through the beast and it came out baby butt smooth. I then gave the handle a
1/8 turn and ran the board through again at full feed speed. The motor never
squawked. Then I gave the handle a 1/4 turn which I believe is 1/32" of a cut.
The motor did load a little so I dropped the feed rate down to 24 fpm. The
motor came back to full rpms and all was well. This board I was testing was
determined to be a piece of cherry 9" wide, so that is a pretty good cut for
one pass. I also confirmed that the sander had taken the board from 0.67" to
0.64" at a rate of 24 fpm with no noticeable loss in rpms. That is about 1/32"
by my calculations. There also was zero, nadda, zip snipe on the board. Even
my Delta sometimes leaves a little mark where the board lurches when it catches
on the hold down rollers.
I swapped the board form one side to the other back and forth without making
any height adjustment changes and both sides of the drums appeared to be dead
nuts on parallel with the table. If they weren't, there are screws at the end
of each drum that allow realignment via fine adjustment. The bearings for the
drums are held in place with some sort of semi-cheezy looking holder. They are
not pressed into some large hunk of honking metal, but then again they do need
to be capable of being fine tuned. As long as they are held well, which they
apparently are, then I can say that the current system serves all functions
perfectly.
Because I was sucking through my floor cleaning dust collector hose (50" of
flex) I was not getting what I think should be proper suction for dust
collection on this beast. As I said above I was using one hose on one of the
dust ports and it caught the dust just fine. There was no dust coming out of
the hood area at all when I sanded under the connected dust port. However, as
the board passed out the other side, there was a little pile of dust at the end
of the board on the rubber table mat. As the belt went over the end of the
table it would dump the dust onto the floor. Not a biggie, and it probably is
a problem that will go away when I get the beast connected to my 2300 cfm
collector. I never have seen this problem with my Delta sander, so I figure
this connection was not sufficient for my General Sander.
The big problem that EVERYONE cites with the Grizzly drum sander is that paper
connection modus operandi. Everyone says the Grizzly mechanism fails and the
paper comes off and self-destructs. Woodmaster uses Hook & Loop paper to solve
their problems, and Delta has a nice spring loaded clip that has never failed
me once. The General has a clip that is spring loaded similar to the Delta,
but they add the twist that it bends the paper back 180 degrees under the lip
of the drum. You can see it on one of the photos on my web page. This I think
gives the best of all worlds. It connects the paper quickly and because it
holds the paper back 180 degrees, the paper is held darn strong. It took me
all of two seconds to pop the paper back in as I tested out the clip.
So far this thing looks like a real winner for me. It had a great price and
the motor seems to be very adequate for my needs. Sure I would have loved the
full power of 5 Hp, but so far I have no complaints about the 3 Hp that is
provided. Adding a 5 Hp might be possible, but the table height adjustment rod
is in the way of where a bigger motor would reside. I often see motors for
sale at auctions. If I see a 5 Hp for cheap someday, I will buy it and see if
the General can fit the bigger motor. This is one tool that looks very
foreboding as one first looks at it. It is big, green, and from what I have
seen very mean. I have a friend that needs about 500 bd ft of pine sanded down
so I will let you know how that goes. That will be the first real test of this
beast. My Delta Drum Sander is a great sander for the money, but in my mind
the next step up is the General Dual Drum sander. The next step above this
would be the Woodmaster Dual Drum Sander and then finally a Timsaver Sander.
Without 3 Phase power and about $10K to kiss off, a Timesaver is out of
consideration for anyone except Norm on the New Yankee Workshop (all hail
Norm!)
Regards,
Brook
elmwood
I've had mine for about 6 months and have no complaints other than
I'd rather have a timesaver wide belt. I use mine in a commercial shop.
No one has complained about it. At first we didn't have a real need for
a sander and didn't have one then things changed on types of jobs so I
bought this. I went in the "semi" local (90 miles down the road) bog boy
toy store and was buying some other items and went to buy another piece
of machinery and came back with this. I didn't even know that General
had made a drum sander until that day. I trust the owner of the store I
buy some of my machinery at and he said they had sold quite a few and no
complaints. I won't tell you what I stole it for buy a bit less than you.
Eric Morehouse
ELM Woodworks
Tony Collums
Performax 22-44 has been around for years and Delta has only been making the
31-250 for 2 years now.
"Vermind" <ver...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011211231133...@mb-fp.aol.com...
Vermind
Woodtek 25" dual drum sander that looks nearly identical. It obviously comes
from the same company in Twaiwann. The drive belt speed is not as fast, the
width of the drums is 1" more than the General, and the base is not flaired
like the new General Models are. Several people complained about how top heavy
the sander is so General made the base wider from front to back. That is a
very new development. The first supplier I checked out only had the narrow
base models. The second store had one of the new flaired model, and two of the
not flaired models. I bought the flaired model. Both dealers commented that
the price for the unit was way out of line. They said it should be up in the
$2K range. Both of them commented that the General 14" and 15" planers, which
have fewer parts and weigh less cost more. Both dealers thought that General
is trying to get people hooked and then they will slowly raise the prices.
Both dealers independently said the same thing.
Brook
Glen Duff
Great summary, I've heard nothing but positives on all General equipment. Thanks
for the info and good sanding. Glen Duff
-------
Larry Crowder
been planning to buy a Woodmaster.) Haven't contacted the mfg yet, but did
look at their web site. Does anyone know of a dealer close to my area?
"Vermind" <ver...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011211231133...@mb-fp.aol.com...
Glen Duff
There is a lot of confusion on General. It is an old company operating out of
Drummondville, Quebec here in Canada and they produce very high quality products.
I own a great 12" General Table Saw that I bought at an auction for $1000 Canadian
that is between 30 and 35 years old.
I think the confusion comes in that General owns General International and it may
have been a General International product that you purchased. Regardless, I do
understand that General does a good job of maintaining reasonable quality on their
Asian manufacturing but I cannot say this from experience as I do not have any of
their products. One of the issues in the U.S. is the drop in the Canadian dollar
that has resulted in better prices in the U.S.
I am not associated with General, just a big time fan of their products, most of
which are beyond my budget and when I can afford it I will purchase a drum sander..
Cheers,
Glen Duff
Thomas Bunetta
Florida :>(
Tom
"Larry Crowder" <lcro...@search-right.com> wrote in message
news:CEKR7.51$M3.1...@newsrump.sjc.telocity.net...
> I'm in Memphis. I would like to look at and touch one of these. (I have
> been planning to buy a Woodmaster.) Haven't contacted the mfg yet, but
did
> look at their web site. Does anyone know of a dealer close to my area?
>
<original post snipped for BW>
sauer....@gmail.com
http://woodworkingtoolkit.com/drum-sander-reviews/
jim.tr...@gmail.com
Is there any more adjustments I need to do
Thank you
Jim
Jerry Osage
below adjustments correctly then there is a problem. Is the front Drum
parallel? If you don't see anything obvious I would call General
International.
~~~~~~~~
From the manual...
For optimal results, the rear drum, ,should be set fractionally
lower than the front drum, ,by the depth of
the grit of the paper on the front drum, .
- The front drum is factory set parallel with the conveyor
table and needs no further adjustments.
- The rear drum is micro-ajustable. It can be slightly
raised or lowered at each end and must be kept
parallel to the table.
ADJUSTING THE HEIGHT OF THE REAR DRUM
To set the rear drum to the correct height proceed as follows:
1. Place two gauge blocks (not included) on the
conveyor belt, positioned one under each end of
the front drum (with the sanding belt installed).
Note: To achieve parallelism with the front drum, any
gauge blocks that are used (whether purchased or
shop made) must be a matching set and must both
be at the same height.
2. Raise the table until the gauge blocks barely
touch the drum.
3. To access the sanding belts, unlock the drum cover
latch, , and open the top cover. The sanding
belts are tightly wound around the drums and attached
at both ends by spring loaded clamps, .
4. Remove the sanding belt from the rear drum.
5. Place the two gauge blocks, one under each end
of the rear drum.
6. Using the 6 MM T-Handle Allen wrench provided,
slowly turn the micro-adjustment screws located
at each end of the drums, , counterclockwise to
lower the drum, , until it barely touches the
gauge blocks.
7. Remove the gauge blocks and reinstall the sanding
belt on the rear drum. The rear drum is now set lower
than the front drum by the thickness of the sandpaper
on the front drum.
8. Given that the rear drum must be lower than the
front drum only by the depth of the grit on the paper,
(and not by the thickness of the paper including
the grit, ), turn the micro-adjustment
screws clockwise, approx. 1/8 of a turn as per the
indicator dials, . This will raise the drum by the
fraction corresponding to the depth of the paper
without the grit,
Note: You will not get an optimal result if the rear
drum is not low enough. On the other hand, attempting
to remove too much material in one single pass
may result in workpiece burn problems or in motor
overheating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Assuming that you do not have the manual - it can de DL'ed as a PDF with
this link.
Here is the TinyURL https://tinyurl.com/y6oto8yl or, if that frightens you
here is the whole thing.
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjpx86r6PXhAhVRKqwKHRTOAGEQFjAAegQIABAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.general.ca%2Fpdf%2Fmachines%2F15_sander%2F15-250_ENG.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2UzuDLYJz-XrB6SXfjlJVd>
Jerry O.
--
Jerry O.
Spalted Walt
> Here is the TinyURL https://tinyurl.com/y6oto8yl or, if that frightens you
> here is the whole thing.
FIFY
jim.tr...@gmail.com
As now I can’t get the front drum to touch the material without cranking the feed table too high and stall the feed table.
Any tips ?
Thx Jim
Jerry Osage
you started making adjustments - and - now you can’t get the front drum to
touch the material without cranking the feed table up too high and stalling
the feed table belt because the rear drum is too low.
Why were you adjusting the rear drum?
To be of much help we will need more of the story
--
Jerry O.
jim.tr...@gmail.com
The left side of the role I have lots of adjustment up and down but the right side on the microwave just screw it will not come up high enough
It seems that I ran out of adjustment on the right side when I tried bringing it up 1/8 of a turn to allow for sandpaper grit
The machine works fine but when I ran material through it it was only sanding on the rear or secondary drum the 1st drum is not touching
Thank you for all your help
dpb
> On Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 11:24:23 AM UTC-4, Jerry Osage wrote:
> When I bought the machine recently it had no sandpaper in it so I followed instructions in the manual applied sandpaper to the front roll I just did it to my blocks that I just did the back roll but in order to get it I just did parallel to the front row I needed to raise it up .
> The left side of the role I have lots of adjustment up and down but the right side on the microwave just screw it will not come up high enough
> It seems that I ran out of adjustment on the right side when I tried bringing it up 1/8 of a turn to allow for sandpaper grit
> The machine works fine but when I ran material through it it was only sanding on the rear or secondary drum the 1st drum is not touching
General is a real outfit; I suggest contacting them directly.
I've no personal experience with their machine so can't comment directly
on just what might be the specific cause behind the symptoms altho
perhaps the previous owner did something to cause an issue? Do you know
whether that person ever had it set up correctly or not?
--
jim.tr...@gmail.com
Spalted Walt
> On Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 11:24:23 AM UTC-4, Jerry Osage wrote:
> > On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 06:18:21 -0700 (PDT), jim.tr...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > >On Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 6:25:06 AM UTC-4, Spalted Walt wrote:
> > >> (Jerry Osage) wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > Here is the TinyURL https://tinyurl.com/y6oto8yl or, if that frightens you
> > >> > here is the whole thing.
> > >> <http://www.general.ca/pdf/machines/15_sander/15-250_ENG.pdf>
> > >>
> > >> FIFY
> > >
> > >I adjusted the drums as directed in the manual but the right side of the rear drum will not adjust any higher
> > >As now I can’t get the front drum to touch the material without cranking the feed table too high and stall the feed table.
> > >
> > >Any tips ?
> > >Thx Jim
> > >
> > OK - things were working - the front drum was touching the material - then
> > you started making adjustments - and - now you can’t get the front drum to
> > touch the material without cranking the feed table up too high and stalling
> > the feed table belt because the rear drum is too low.
> >
> > Why were you adjusting the rear drum?
> >
> > To be of much help we will need more of the story
> > --
> > Jerry O.
>
> When I bought the machine recently it had no sandpaper in it so I followed instructions in the manual applied sandpaper to the front roll I just did it to my blocks that I just did the back roll but in order to get it I just did parallel to the front row I needed to raise it up .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTgCxi3CX0
DerbyDad03
. . . . . . . . .
It appears that you have run out, so I'm willing to share some of mine.
You're welcome. ;-)
dpb
> I’m not sure the machine has only been used just a few times it is in new condition ...
Well, on occasion even the good manufacturers have a lemon so you can't
completely rule out there was an assembly problem...or that it somehow
got damaged in shipping or the like.
I'm not sure whether it was shipped fully assembled from factory or
whether required some user/dealer assembly; there's another place
something could have happened if so.
Or, could have been mishandled anywhere along the route--it's a large
machine so opportunities there for somebody to have slung a sling (so to
speak :) ) under the drums and lifted, for example, bending a shaft or
the like.
Just all kinds of possibilities besides perhaps just a simple oversight
of some sort but that is impossible to diagnose remotely without the
expert from the factory.
Did the elderly gentleman indicate it ever functioned properly--or would
he have even known?
--dpb
jim.tr...@gmail.com
I will do some further inspections on the drums and the level of the table to make sure nothing is bent that is a good thought thank you
DerbyDad03
> I don’t believe there has been any shipping damage that I can see the older gentleman was a machinist who is now in a home unfortunately that is one possibility I had not thought of though
> I will do some further inspections on the drums and the level of the table to make sure nothing is bent that is a good thought thank you
k...@notreal.com
anymore). This sort gets off on annoying those who want to read what
he's written. If he can't be bothered to write for his reader, I
can't be bothered to read what he's written.