22-44 Plus Drum Sander w/Open Stand - 649004K  Product Reviews

"Got my Performax 649004 this week. Also got the stand, casters and additional in-feed and out-feed table. If you buy this sander, get the casters as this unit is HEAVY! When installing the sander on its stand the bolts that were included were not the correct size and I had to make a run to the hardware store to get the correct size. The conveyor was easy to adjust and tracking is right on. I used a straight edge to check the accuracy of the drum and it was dead on from one side to the other. Quality of machine is excellent. The dust collector is cheezy plastic, but with my DC it works great. If you are going to use this sander you will need a strong DC. I have the Craftsman Professional DC and when sanding panels there is no sawdust that gets past the collector. The sander has no vibration and is very quiet. It says that it needs a dedicated 20 amp service. I run it on same outlet that I have my DC on and it doesn't trip the breaker. The casters make it very easy to move around the shop. They all swivel and have a great locking mechanism. The casters are very expensive but worth their weight in gold. I have sanded several door panels and drawer fronts and the results were incredible. I also had several oak cabinet doors I had taken off a kitchen island, they are 21 inches wide and 24 inches long. I set the sander to take off about a 1/64" to remove the original finish and it did a fantastic job. There was no snipe at either end. Sander came very well packaged with no damage. The boxes it comes in are the heaviest cardboard boxes I have ever seen. You can't go wrong with this unit. I am very happy that I bought the Performax drum sander. "

"When this thing is tuned and working properly, it's a great machine. Alas, those moments are rare. I spend more time adjusting it than actually using it. First, setting the sanding drum parallel to the table is a pain in the ass. The owner's manual says that parallelism is set at the factory and should not hafta be set by the owner. When I received mine, it was out by 3/8"! This is a huge amount. Obviously, the quality control department was at lunch when my machine was assembled. To set the parallelism, four bolts are loosed and a knob is turned. The problem arises from the fact that there is so much play in these components, that by the time everything is re-tightened, it is out of parallel again. So, to set it is very much a hit-or-miss process. Second, attaching the sandpaper belt to the drum is another pain in the ass. There are two clips that hold the sandpaper, one on either end. The first one is easy to set because it is on the outboard and you can see it and reach it. But the in-board clip cannot be seen. The clearance between the drum and the frame is really tight. Performax supplies a wire thingamajig to open the clip and keep the sandpaper taut. This works kinda. But if you have bear paws for hands, forget it. Third, it's tough to keep the sandpaper taut. Pulling the sandpaper taut, working the thingamajig and pulling the tab into the clip is an exercise in frustration. Then the belts will stretch and need to be re-tightened. And the belts will always rise away from the drum by about 1 mm where they turn into clip. The clip is at 90 degrees to the drum, so, you could crease the sandpaper so it fits better but when you do that, it weakens the sandpaper and it will break. So, with this bump, you really don't have a full 22" because it doesn't sand correctly at the bump in the sandpaper. And forget trying to sand something 44" wide-I'd rather use 36 grit as toilet paper than sand a wide face frame. Fourth, wood burns for no apparent reason. I get these areas, usually 3/8" wide where something attaches itself to the belt and boom, there is a band of pitch that is burned onto the sandpaper and will never come off. This pitch immediately starts gouging the wood. I use a dust collector rated at 1100 CFM and I clean the belt often with a crepe rubber stick. Also, whenever I sand something greater than 6" wide I increase the depth of cut only 1/8 of a revolution at a time (1/128"). I'll also do multiple passes at each depth. So, I've come to the conclusion that this is underpowered. (And no, there are no glue linescausing this.) The automatic feed limiter doesn't solve this problem. In fact, if the feed limiter kicks in, at least 50% of the time, I'll get a wide swath of burn marks. So, I always feed so slow the feed limiter doesn't kick in. Fifth, the belts break long before the abrasive is gone. And given the cost of these belts, it makes using this machine too expensive. Now there are a few good things. The tracking of the conveyor belt is easy to set and it stays there. I've never had a problem with the flex in the cantilevered design. Snipe is an easily managed issue. And when it is perfectly adjusted, the belts are taut and new, it is a beautiful machine. One reviewer mentioned that he never uses his planer anymore. I think this reviewer has spent way too much time in the finishing room without the exhaust fan turned on. Using this to true and square lumber would take 10X as long as a jointer/planer. Another reviewer mentioned that this machine will leave a surface ready for staining/finish. Well, maybe, depending on the particular application. But one reason I got mine was to flatten doors after glue up. Because the rails run parallel to axis of the machine, the resulting sanding marks are perpendicular to the grain direction. Most people, myself included, find this objectionable. In conclusion, unless you like fiddling with your machines more than you like working wood, stay away from this. UPDATE A friend reccommended that I not use the crepe rubber to clean my belts. This has helped reduce burning a lot. So, I would now give this machine 3 stars and strongly reccommend that you do not use the crepe rubber pad sold by Griizly for cleaning drum sanders."

"Product was well packaged to prevent damage, with instuctions that were easy to understand. Works well to surface and demension stock, with very accurate setup. Very pleased."

"I had bought a Delta 31-252 drum sander in 2003. The Delta turned out to be the worst power tool I have ever used. Gave it away this year to have an excuse to buy a replacement. Have had the Performax 22 44 (649004K) with caster set for about two months now. This sander is as good as the Delta was bad. Easy setup, paper change is reasonably easy. Works great with material less than 5" long and 1/8" thick. Leaves no dust when connected to my 1.5 hp Penn Industies dust collector. Had I purchased this in 2003 my blood pressure would have been much easier to regulate. "