This is an owners review of my JET 10-20 drum sander that I have owned one year now.
I won't bash the machine but will say that for a $600-$700 investment I expected better performance. If you were trying to remove some deep planer tear out you would probably rethink your planer.
Replacement of the sand paper on the drum proves to be a problem. Online reviews report that the paper fastening mechanism was flimsy and hard to operate and that paper installation was difficult but got easier with practice. I found these reviews to be correct and questioned the paper holding abilities of these mechanisms, and had a lot of problems keeping the paper tight on the drum. Several of my wood pieces were destroyed when the sand paper loosened and grabbed and created unrecoverable sanded gashes.
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The conveyor belt was the focus of most of the reviews. Some owners claimed that they could not get the belt to track at all and JET had to replace a number of them. I found conveyor belt tracking to be really "iffy" and never was able to keep it tracked, but heeded the reviewers warnings and kept my eyes on it to prevent it from self destructing the belt.
All that said, despite the above mentioned problems the JET 10-20 drum sander has sanded everything I have fed through it.
Today I started to sand some 8" wide boards, the drum sander has not been used in 4-5 months.. The conveyor motor, a 90 volt variable speed fractional horsepower gear motor will not run. I removed the gear motor and checked the gearbox to see if it was stuck, not, must be the controller.
I guess I will get to see how the JET warranty is. I actually believe that their service center is the same as Rigid. Oh joy.
capncarl
I won't bash the machine but will say that for a $600-$700 investment I expected better performance. If you were trying to remove some deep planer tear out you would probably rethink your planer.
Replacement of the sand paper on the drum proves to be a problem. Online reviews report that the paper fastening mechanism was flimsy and hard to operate and that paper installation was difficult but got easier with practice. I found these reviews to be correct and questioned the paper holding abilities of these mechanisms, and had a lot of problems keeping the paper tight on the drum. Several of my wood pieces were destroyed when the sand paper loosened and grabbed and created unrecoverable sanded gashes.
Ł
The conveyor belt was the focus of most of the reviews. Some owners claimed that they could not get the belt to track at all and JET had to replace a number of them. I found conveyor belt tracking to be really "iffy" and never was able to keep it tracked, but heeded the reviewers warnings and kept my eyes on it to prevent it from self destructing the belt.
All that said, despite the above mentioned problems the JET 10-20 drum sander has sanded everything I have fed through it.
Today I started to sand some 8" wide boards, the drum sander has not been used in 4-5 months.. The conveyor motor, a 90 volt variable speed fractional horsepower gear motor will not run. I removed the gear motor and checked the gearbox to see if it was stuck, not, must be the controller.
I guess I will get to see how the JET warranty is. I actually believe that their service center is the same as Rigid. Oh joy.
capncarl
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