Earlier in they year, I had ordered a new drum sander. It took a few months to be delivered, but I finally have the Supermax 19-38 in my shop. In November, I built a dedicated rolling cabinet for the drum sander and it now is the time to see how well the cabinet works out. I also took some time to properly assemble and calibrate the sander.

YouTube Video

I detail out most of the same information in this short video

Packaging and Delivery

The drum sander was shipped via freight and arrived on a large pallet with 3 individual boxes all wrapped together. (Sander, Conveyor, Stand). I removed the conveyor from the box since it was relatively light. Then, I cut apart the drum sander box at every corner to remove all the packing material and get clear access to it.

Mounting Holes

Before lifting the drum sander into place (with help), I had to create some clearance holes in the cabinet. 3/8-16 bolts will be used to secure the drum sander to the cabinet. I measured the hole positions on the drum sander, which were 9 1/8″ X 31 1/2″. I centered this hole pattern on my cabinet and drilled clearance holes. In hindsight, I should have offset this a little bit towards the front of the drum sander and the open side of my cabinet. This would have allowed me to get a full size washer in the rear.

Assembly

Assembly of the drum sander is pretty straight forward. Attach the conveyor belt, then attach the folding infeed/outfeed tables (if purchased). The most time consuming part of assembly is getting the infeed/outfeed tables aligned with the belt. The process is very iterative where I had to tighten the mounting bolts, loosen the bolts, adjust the set screw, tighten bolts, loosen bolts, adjust the set screw, etc. I assembled the tables after I calibrated the sander, but probably should have assembled the tables first.

Sandpaper Roll

The sander comes with sandpaper attached to the drum already, but I had removed this during my initial calibration. Installing the sandpaper took a bit of trial and error as well. I found that I had to insert a fair amount of sandpaper into the “outboard” side of the drum before I started rolling the paper around the drum. Else, I would end up with too much length on the inboard side. I will be honest, it also took me a while to figure out the TUF (take up tool) that came with the sander. Essentially it is a 3rd hand when installing the sandpaper into the inboard side of the drum.

Take Up Tool

The tool is pretty simple, but was not intuitive at first. First, stand on the infeed side of the drum sander towards the motor. Point the handle towards teh outfeed side and slip it into this little hole on the “latch” that holds the paper in place (on the inboard side of the drum).

Then lift and rotate the tool counterclockwise and rest it on the sandpaper roll. The spring tension will pull the tool down onto the sandpaper and in place. This allows two hands to feed the sandpaper into the drum. I know in the pictures the sandpaper is already installed, but just imagine the tapered end still being outside of drum. This tool holds the roll in place while it can be inserted into the drum

Calibration

The last step is to calibrate the sander. The only calibration that is required is to set the conveyor parallel with the drum. The instructions use a pretty simple and effective method. Utilize a piece of wood and visually check it hits the drum on the inboard and outboard sides. I did this at first, but figured I get a bit closer. So, I took it a bit further and utilized a large piece of MDF and some digital calipers. First, I ran the MDF through the sander and measured the thickness at 3 points along the inboard and outboard edge. Then, I would adjust the conveyor accordingly. Adjusting the conveyor takes loosening of 4 bolts and utilizing a jack bolt to move the outboard side up or down. It was an iterative process that took some time , but I was able to get it darn near perfect (0.1mm or so)

Finished Photos