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I am in the midst of a decision that might involve spending some money, so I thought I would gather some collective wisdom before I pick a path.

I'm a hack hobbyist; I build for myself and family. I might get good enough someday to sell the guitars I make, but not right now.

I own and thoroughly enjoy using a Performax (now Jet) 10-20 drum sander. It does exactly what I want on so many things: sides, neck blanks, fingerboards, headplates, bridges and bridge plates, bindings, purflings, linings, ... But when it comes to tops and backs, the results are not as good as I would like, and there is some hassle involved in getting the drum tilted the right amount so it won't leave ridges near the middle of the plates. Plus the middle of the plates wind up thicker than the left/right edges, I have to reset the drum tilt when I am done, all of that. I would like to do something different for tops and backs.

I could buy a larger cantilevered drum sander, but there are serious downsides. A larger one is expensive, takes up a lot more room (I don't have much of that to spare), and the marketplace selection is frustrating. A Jet 16-32 is too small for the wide body guitars I build; I need an 18 inch drum if I am going to bother with an upgrade at all. But the 18 inch options get some pretty bad reviews: Delta and Grizzly make the same design, and I see a lot of negative comments about them. I feel like the Jet 22-44 Plus would work great, but they are expensive. There is a used Grizzly G0458 18 inch for sale not far from me, but again, some people deride these as being junk.

I could build a closed end 18 inch drum sander and try to keep the footprint small (again, space is a concern). I have built a few other machines, so I think I could do OK here. But I am unsure whether to try to tackle a power feed or go manual feed. Plus, this feels a bit wasteful, since I have a dandy 10-20 that works perfectly for everything except tops and backs.

I could just man up and use hand planes for tops and backs, and the 10-20 for everything else. I have used hand planes for thicknessing before, and it was a bit frustrating, but I have nicer planes now, and I am better at sharpening. If I go this route, I feel like I should experiment with toothed blades, because doing all of that physical work and blowing a chunk out of some EIR does not appeal to me.

So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do? Please, in the holiday spirit, if we could avoid a general hand plane versus drum sander debate, that would be a blessing. I'm only asking about this specific situation. Thanks for your input.

If I were in your shoes I would adjust the 10-20 so that it works. I have a 16-32 and have never had to adjust it and it works fine for wide bodied guitar tops, just rotate the piece. Or did you mean to say that your 10-20 is not big enough?

For your situation, I would go with hand planing. Setup and sharpness are the key.

If I was planning a couple instruments a year, I would adjust the 10/20 like you said (doesn't really take that long) and plane the middle. (I leave the middle of the top thicker anyways) I love the feeling when those .001 shavings start coming off!

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Pat

Possibly obvious answer: Hand plane your next guitar and see how you like it, and go from there. You don't need a fancy plane, but being able to get it really sharp makes a huge difference.

I use a $30 block plane with toothed blade (big teeth, just 4 notches cut in it with a dremel wheel) for almost all thicknessing work. Only redwood and cedar work better with a straight blade. Even spruce will often tear, since it's so rare to find with zero runout, and it's hard to avoid ever touching the centerline where the runout direction switches.

It would be good to also have a finer toothed blade for particularly troublesome woods like the Malaysian blackwood back I was just working on the other day, but for EIR the wide tooth blade going sideways to the grain should be perfect.

I also plan to get an O1 steel blade for abrasive woods like African blackwood. Card scraper is the only thing I have that really works on it, and even that dulls pretty quickly. But someone on here a while back mentioned ABW planing beautifully, and I asked what kind of blade and he said O1. Or if you have a Veritas plane, you could try PM-V11 for your large tooth all-purpose thicknessing blade.

I use the 10-20 for tops and backs and the middles end up about 0.005" thicker the way I have it set. IMO that just isn't a significant issue but you may not be satisfied with that. It's been more than three years since I last adjusted the arm on mine; I have it mounted on it's own cart and am careful not to move it around by the arm so I don't screw up the adjustment. My only complaint is that it is a slow process.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I'll clarify. When I use the 10-20 for parts that are narrower than 10 inches, I keep the drum parallel to the conveyor, and all is right with the world. But when I use it for tops and backs, I have to tilt the drum to take a lighter pass on the open end, or else I get serious ridges in the middle few inches of the top or back, caused by the edge of the sandpaper on the open end digging into the wood. This takes some piddling with scrap to get the right tilt, and I still don't always get it right. Assuming I do, it does leave a slant from middle to side that I have to deal with later via scraping or planing. This is built into the design of the 10-20, with instructions in the manual. I just feel like I'm chasing my tail a bit with this adjustment process. I can avoid it by building or buying a larger sander; I can live with it and get better at it; I can avoid it by hand planing tops and backs and leaving the drum set up for small parts. I hope that helps.

I see. When I do narrow parts I just flip them side for side to even then out in the last few passes. So I don't ever readjust; I agree that would be a PITA.


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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I totally agree with those disappointed in the Delta 18" the whole idea of the table moving never made sense to me. Anyway, we have a 10-20, part of the problem with it (I believe) in getting a consistent thickness all the way across is a slight bubbling of the abrasive at both clamping mechanisms. We use ours for binding FB and small parts.

As suggested try your luck with hand planing -- I was trained by a pro and had access to high line tools. Not for me, I worked exactly one set of parts -- then began building a drum sander. Which brings me to my opinion. Building a 20" drum sander is certainly within reach of a person that can make guitars, there are even plans available that have conveyor feed. Make sure to over power it and it will serve you well.

The 22-44 is a real nice machine if we end up needing another sander that likely is what we'll purchase. Note that cantilevered designs will always need special attention to get perfect thickness all the way across the drum -- but with the Jets/Performax its doable.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

My .02: I use the 16-20 drum sander and love it. I have it set up to sand a few thousandths higher on the open end of the drum and flip tops and backs to sand them on both sides. You actually want the outer edges of tops to be a bit thinner so this is not a problem IMO. I use the slight depth taper of the drum to make fine adjustments to the final thickness of some parts. Other than changing paper and setting the height, I never touch mine.

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It will probably be alright.

Just moved my 10 - 20 from my home shop to the city shop last weekend and we are looking forward to having it to use here.

Our 10-20 works great but there are some finicky things about these very useful machines. As such from what I am reading I too suspect that yours could benefit from leveling the drum so that you have no more than say .002" variance from one end of the drum to the other.

Other suggestions are that these machines can't take off much at any given pass without some issues. As such I never turn the crank more than 1/8 of a turn at once and only seek to take .003 - .005 off at once. Like some of the others above I also will run the work though again without touching the crank and I may do this twice too until no further material is not removed. Manipulating the piece, flipping it over, changing feed ends, etc. all can go a long way to evening out things too.

My machine was plagued with the ole feed belt wants to move right thing that many complain about. No matter what I did it never got any better.

So who am I to argue.... I also noticed that if I left the feed belt where it wants to migrate to, the right side, my ridges went away too..... Go figure..... dunno So I left it there for years now with no problems, no ridges unless I try to hog off more than .005 in one pass. It seems that if the feed belt is not under the outboard/open end of the drum the outboard end of the drum cuts less and no ridge forms..... Again..... go figure.

If it were me a 16-32 has some of the same issues and would not provide me with any more value. Using hand planes would be a choice I would make if I wanted to use hand planes but I actually prefer using the 10-20.

Anyway these are really useful machines and you can even stick your nuts in there...........with a carrier board and some stops.

PS: These machines greatly benefit from very good dust collection especially with rosewoods that want to gum up the paper. Cooling from good dust collection is important with these things to keep the drum and paper cool or cooler.

Any of the open ended machines are going to have the same problems. It's really a question of how much patience you have to tinker with them. There have already been several replies indicating guys who are perfectly happy with their machines, I on the other hand bought a PerforMIN 16/32 and hated the thing as soon as I started using it. Not nearly as accurate as I wanted and constantly having to diddle around with the tilt one way or another. It just wasn't capable of what I wanted to do and within 8 months I sold it and replaced it with a 24" dual drum sander that was worth every penny. If you want your tops to be accurate your going to have to deal with the frustration and plan out your work accordingly. Patience is the most important thing with these machines. Do tops and backs in batches if and when you can so that once you dial it in you can get several sets done.

Alternatively I certainly would at least try using the hand planes for a set. A really good small bench or even block plane with a toothing blade can get a lot of work done pretty quickly. I would;t use a master grade set for the first time, but find some scrap wood to work on and fine tune your capabilities first.

good luck,
JeffD

I've been pretty lucky in that I've had little problem with this issue using the Jet/Perfomax brand conveyor belts -- after markets did not work at all. I have a few of those cheapies left a laying around I plan to try them again using a trick I recently remembered. Seems if a few layers of tape are applied (like 3" wide) to the center of the conveyor rollers a crown is formed which tends to center the belt better -- worth a try.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Maybe in the spirit of the season, I could put my Schweddy Balls in there, too. Good times.

Moving away from the risque, I think I'm good on dust collection and not trying to sand too much off at once. I actually retrofitted the 10-20 with a 6" port for my serious dust collector (the kind that will suck up a tape measure, no joke), and I only go in quarter turns of the depth wheel. It is the tilt adjustment that gives me some grief.

I guess the least wasteful approach, other than continuing to tinker with the tilt (which I am tired of doing), is to revisit hand planing just for the tops and backs. I do feel that I would be better at it now than when I first started out, Cumpiano book in hand, along with a poorly fettled cheap smoothing plane. It worked back then, but not well. Both my tools and skills have improved. I could get a decent toothed iron and see what happens.

In case the hand planing doesn't work out, any suggestions on plans for a DIY power feed would be appreciated. Thanks again for all the input, and feel free to keep adding more.

Here's one -- not sure what he used for the conveyor drive but I know that the old GM windshield wiper gear motors have torque up the butt and DC speed controllers are readily available. Matter of fact I have a motor and speed controller I've never used -- You'd power it with a 12 volt auto battery charger.

http://woodgears.ca/sander/drum.html

Looking closer at the picture I see the Wiper motor is exactly what he used for his conveyor drive.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Hmmm, mine is a 22/44 unless I'm very careful with the wrap it will take off a little more in the inside, I wrap from the open end to the inside. The poly belts work great no tracking problems.

Hand planes, if you can keep your edge tools scary sharp thats a fun way to thickness backs and tops.

FWIW, (knock on wood), our Delta machine works great. I still want to upgrade to a Jet 22-44 osc one day, but even then I'll likely still use the delta for tops. RJ took the time to set it up great.

Before that we had a Hausmann (same as Grizzly) and it also functioned adequately, but the Delta is easier to change the paper.

With both machines, we hog it down with 60, a few cleanup passes with 100, then final thicknessing with 180. Adequate for our purposes.

You have a third option of course, which is to befriend a cabinet shop with a good machine, and find someone who will let you use their machine in the downtime or do it themselves for six packs.

Exactly my experience. From what I've read, the 16-32 is much easier to keep in adjustment than the 10-20, so that may actually be a viable option.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I've got the Supermax 19-38. It's built and designed by the same folks that designed the performax stuff. The thing Is made out of cast iron instead of aluminum so it's quite a bit stiffer and weighs a ton. More powerful motor also. I've had it for about 2 years and it has preformed flawlessly.

Don, I used to have that problem with my 10-20 as well, but found a simple solution. Buy a long pair of needle nose pliers with the bent 90 degree tip. After installing the sandpaper, use these to reach in and really tighten the sandpaper in its clamp at both ends. Its the slightly loose sandpaper at the end that digs those grooves for an inch or so, and this makes absolutely tight sandpaper trivial to achieve,
Mike

Mike brings up a very good point. Let's face it replacing the paper on a Performax 10-20 drum is not all that easy. Not only do you have to get the paper snug so that the spring loaded clamps can work as designed to pull it even tighter you also have to leave approx 1/8" gaps where you can see the drum between the winds. Why? Because if you don't the paper being edge to edge will not tighten on the drum from the spring loaded clips/clamps. BTW it also says this in the Performax instructions not that I'm typically one to read instructions except as a last resort.....

Ken C. excellent tip on the masking tape thing, Thank You!!! Looking forward to trying it and you may have just solved a 10 year issue for me!

Back to 10-20 conveyor belt -- its my understanding that the earlier versions did not come with the ceramic belt tracking guides, mine has them.

https://parts.jettools.com/Detail.aspx?PartID=98-0080A

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Yep and mine are likely nylon, another good idea to fix this, thanks again Ken!

Don, what about using what you already have in combination? Figure out how bad the ridges are without wasting time doing a special set up on the 10-20. Allow just enough extra thickness for the ridges, use a coarse grit, and even it out w/ a hand plane.
Do you have a deep reach dial gauge?
A side benefit would be a sweet planed surface for brace gluing.
A machine can do a lot of work and save elbow grease, and/or preform tasks very accurately. A machine that is slow, only taking off 3-5 thousandths per pass and is inaccurate to boot, seems like the wrong tool for the job.

First of all, I plane pretty much everything. What I'd say though, is there is no simple route to high quality results. Either you put the investment into machinery, its set-up and user technique or planes, their set up and user technique. It's a big commitment to do both. Don't underestimate the cost of decent planes (ticket price or tuning time), sharpening equipment and the learning curve. Planing tops is easy, backs and sides are another matter. For EIR, (for example) you'd need to learn cross grain planing techniques and high angle planing techniques if you want to do it all using planes. (I never use toothed blades, BTW, but others do...)

The only stuff I haven't been able to plane is this stuff (it won't scrape, either)... but you're unlikely to see any of it your way ! It went through a wide belt sander; way better than drum sanding if you have the budget, dust collection and the space.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I do. I might need to try your suggestion.

I tell you what, though: that Supermax 19-38 sounds fantastic. It's the right size, it's not as expensive as other options, and the reviews are great. This might be the upgrade for me, if I upgrade.