Performax 628900 Mini 10-Inch 1 Horsepower Benchtop Drum Sander, 115-Volt 1 Phase  Product Reviews

"I've had this unit for about a year. I've run several hundred feet of wood through the machine so far. The reason why I got a drum sander is that my planer would take chunks instead of cuts of wood with switchback grain. The drum sander eliminates that problem plus the snipe is gone too. You are limited to a max thickness of 3" though. I cut thick veneers 1/8" on my bandsaw and this machine is perfect for cleaning up those pieces. I never got good results using the planer on such thin wood - again, too much tearout. I would have liked to had the 16-32, but the 10-20 fits better into my small workshop. No faults were found in packaging, fit or finish. I've had no tracking problems and changing the belt is easy. I've used the belt tool a few times, but I don't bother with it any more. If your fingers are large, you may have difficulty with the belt change. Using 80 grit paper and the feed rate set to ~75% I find I can consistently take off 1/64" of a 6" wide board of red oak. This is more of a finesse machine - you're not going to be removing 1/16" at a time. If you want to haul a 30' boat on the freeway, don't hitch it to your Ford Escort. I can tell when the motor will tend to overload by the sound - I just crank down the feed rate for that section. If the motor stops, I hit the drum power button, let it run through and pass it back through at a slower feed rate. That way I won't have to futz with the depth setting - handy when thicknessing many boards to the same size. I rarely have the overload breaker kick off anymore. "

"The machine is very well made, works great, and is a great additon to any home or hobby shop looking for a reasonably prices drum sander."

"I use mine for red oak, walnut and cherry. I have never had a problem with the tracking belt. It worked perfect right out of the box. The overload shutoff is a little test but as long as you dont try to take off too much at one time you will be fine. I have put about 1000bf of hardwood though mine in the last year with flawless results. The only reason I only give it 4 stars is because of the method used to load the paper. Its a pain in the a--."

"I have owned this drum sander for around two years and I am finding that I use it less and less in my shop. One of the first problems I had with it was the tracking guides for the table belt caused premature failure of the belt. They actually tore the belt. Once I removed them, I had better success with the replacement belt, but you need to watch the tracking closely. I felt that this drum sander was under powered for its size. I had constant problems with the onboard circuit breaker activating while doing just minimum sanding. The breaker button would not reset for 5 minutes, so I finally by-passed it. That helped out a lot. It wasn't like I was attempting to sand ¼" off of a 12" wide board, sometimes the breaker would trip when I was sanding a 4" wide piece of Oak and sanding off less than 1/16". It was very frustrating. The sanding belt itself is a trip to get on and once it's on, it is hard to keep it on until you run some pieces of wood through it. The belt needs constant attention during the wear in, or you will tear/rip it and it will be useless. It seems the belt stretches some with friction heat and you have to readjust it or it will tear. This unit is just not worth the money in my opinion. Bigger IS better."