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Although I don't use this machine as frequently as some of my other tools -- when you need to sneak up on final dimensions,edge sand hardwood doors, drawer fronts of faceframes this machine is great to have around. This unit gets the job done with precision and speed.
Especially since we were thinking of getting one. This is one smooth working critter. All in all, a great machine. The hardest thing to get use to is the belts movement as I am so use to non moving belt sanders. Took about 4 hours to set it up on the base and learn the book and then it was off to make money. The spindle sander in three sizes that can be easily replaced on the end and which I did not know it came with, is a really cool extra.
I really like it. drum sander is pretty useless for someone to use as a dedicated sander.
As far as setting up for acurate indexing. sleeves get wasted due to the high speed and non-oscillating.
I am a custom cabinet maker. My main use is face frames, drawer fronts, clean up of parts, etc.
A little set-up time and your done. I have used this machine for about two years now.
haveing used other edge sanders (Oliver) I found the oscillating belt awesome.
This statement alone was the biggest factor that swayed me into purchasing this machine. motor is quite powerful and allows agressive sanding pressure to be applied without bogging.If you need the longer sanding length a 108" belt gives over an 80" belt sander and feel that you will need a 3 h.p. If I would have known this I would have saved $900.00 and purchased the Powermatic, Taiwan made sander for $899.00.The sander does have some good to excellent features. motor of the Powermatic then maybe the additional cost of $900.00 would be justified. At 90, 45 and 180 degree's they would be nice to have, but have a very ambigious feel to them. I recently purchased this machine and I am quite happy with the sanders performance so far.There are some things that I would like to make any prospective purchasers aware of. This is a large heavy duty machine that basically works well. Also the sanding head angle scale is difficult to read since the motor hangs where you need to place your head to get a straight on look at the scale.The two biggest disapointments are that the sanding platen is not constructed of cast iron but is fabricated of sheet steel and covered with a graphite sheet.
The catalog that I found this machine in "Tool Crib" clearly and in color states "Prodly made in the USA". motor over the 1 1/2 h.p. The base that supports the whole machine is robust and gives the sander a stable feel to it. But for me I could have done other things with the money. The 3 h.p. The steel is fairly thick, approximately 1/8". The tracking - oscillating mechanism works good, but is dissapointing in that the drum sanding attachment does not oscillate. I think that Delta needs to address the sanding head detents.
The cast iron tables are nicely ground and very flat. The thing that I found to be the biggest disapointment though was that the sander is made in Taiwan. I can not tell when the head is in these positions, so I have to use a square for an accurate setting. Time will tell if this will hold up to long sessions of sanding or not.
Even then, It is impossible to view the scale head on as the motor lies directly in your line of sight. I'm going to epoxy a small mirror to a block of wood with a triangular cross section then epoxy that to the motor mounting plate. I like the way the drum covers latch back out of the way so you can sand boards longer than the table. The auxiliary sanding table which is made from heavy formed steel is at a true 90 degrees to the main table.The only other alignment problems that I see come from two areas. All oscillation is done with the sanding belt only. All seemed OK. It would have been very easy for Delta to do this or for them to have used a prism mounted in a similar way.This machine deliveres excellent results when sanding straight edges and that is what it is all about. First of all, when you release the table locks to slide it in and out to the sanding belt, it is possible to push to table out of alignment.
When I turned the sander on it quiclky destroyed the belt. Why would I not want to start out on the Grizzly. I'm glad I rotated the motor by hand before plugging it in. This would not be a problem for normal edge sanding operations but would pose a hassle when using the miter guage. My dealer sent out his service technician with the replacement parts and a new belt. There is no oscillating action with these drums.
My local dealer immediately offered to repair or replace the sander with a new one. I should have looked it over more carefully. He assured me that the bearing race and a couple of other metal scraps are not from my sander. If I didn't have the Grizzly oscillating spindle sander and if the Powermatic had a longer belt and allowed you to latch back its guards, I'd have bought the Powermatic. Once installed and readjusted with a new belt installed, the tracking worked perfectly.
I used a Jet adjustable base rated for 1200 pounds. I've revised this review as of 1/8/04My sander arrived with the motor fan cover pushed in and rubbing against the fan. It also revealed that the tip of the spring which thrusts the pin forward was lying in the cutaway wherein the pin retracts. Under belt tension, the table is off by a few degrees. I unscrewed the retaining cap on the pin mechanism and rotated the spring so that a flat edge now rested against the pin.
Visual inspection showed the the three bolts I had found at the bottom of the crate were missing from the underside of the sander where they mount the idler drum to the machine. This was easy to remedy with a screwdriver. Dissassembly revealed a burr on the end of the pin itself which prevented it from smoothly disengaging. The quailty and consistancy of the grind and polish was excellent.This is a big and bulky machine and it takes four people to lift it onto its mobile base. I had to cut a few inches off two of the adjusting bars to compensate for the width of the sander.Assembly was easy and so was belt adjustment. A remedy is to take two small thin right angle metal brackets and loosly wedge them in place between the table and the belt as you move the table forward. This keeps the tip of the spring from jamming in the pin's raceway. The outer cover to the grarbox was also dented.
It was worth the effort as it now quickly comes into square.You can forget about trying to view the indexing scale with the supplied pointer. There is a certain economy to using the belt as opposed to an expensive sanding sleeve. Don't forget to slide the metal brackets out befor turning on the sander.The other problem comes with the built in detent locking mechanism for 0, 45, and 90 degrees. That will allow me to view the scale head on even though I'm viewing it at right angles from the front of the sander.
It took some carefuI adjustment to get to detent mechanism to deliver a repeatable 90 degrees. I'll have to rough sand curved surfaces on this machine and do the final sanding on my Grizzly oscillating drum sander. I opted to keep the one I had because because the tables and fences were ground flat and true and "initial" alignment (see comments further on)was very good. As long as the belt is not under tension, the auxilliary table is 90 degrees to the idler drum even when raised all the way up to the auxilliary sanding drums. For my pointer to be anywhere near where it is supposed to be it has to go all the way back against the indexing pin mechanism.
There were also several bolts and even a piece of bearing race found at the bottom of the shipping crate. Then set your table locks and you have repeatable accuracy. There is no provision to compensate for this. I walked the belt through several rotations by hand to check tracking. My dealer also assures me that as long as they are in business, I will never have to worry about the warranty expiring.I was initially impressed with the way things line up.
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