I'm going to be picking up a drum sander from frazierk's classified ad this week (performax 16 32) and have been reading up on them. It seems that other than material removal speed the drawback is that the sander leaves lines on the workpiece that need to be cleaned up. I've read that you can angle the piece one way then the other to help minimize this to an extent, but because the feed belt travels in line with the drums rotation, it won't ever be perfect.
I know that if the feed belt on a belt sander travels at a slight angle to the direction of the abrasive travel, small belt defects will be minimized, but I'm not sure that this same benefit will translate to drum sanders because of the thin line of contact the drum has with the wood.
Basically, my query is this: although it might not be perfect, does anyone see a benefit of turning the direction of the drum or the feed belt slightly to minimize the linear marking of the drum. Here's a video that illustrates my idea, except with a wide belt sander:
[video=youtube;TZObeIRx1tE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZObeIRx1tE[/video]
I assume that this would be very effective on an oscillating drum sander as well as a belt sander, just not sure about a non-oscillating drum sander.
I know that if the feed belt on a belt sander travels at a slight angle to the direction of the abrasive travel, small belt defects will be minimized, but I'm not sure that this same benefit will translate to drum sanders because of the thin line of contact the drum has with the wood.
Basically, my query is this: although it might not be perfect, does anyone see a benefit of turning the direction of the drum or the feed belt slightly to minimize the linear marking of the drum. Here's a video that illustrates my idea, except with a wide belt sander:
[video=youtube;TZObeIRx1tE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZObeIRx1tE[/video]
I assume that this would be very effective on an oscillating drum sander as well as a belt sander, just not sure about a non-oscillating drum sander.