Popular Post Pwk5017 Posted March 12, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted March 12, 2018 I owned this sander for 3 years, and upon selling it last night i thought it might be beneficial to do a small write up on it. When i purchased this used three years ago, i could not locate any reviews on it, but took the risk on such a low price. While it is branded Performax, it is very very similar to the Supermax 37x2. Supermax provides support for the machine, and very little has changed on it in the last 10 years. I believe their dust hood has 3 ports instead of two, and the table support brackets are slightly different. Other than that, the Supermax team did not change their design after splitting from Performax. At the time of purchase, i was making a lot of countertops and end grain surfaces. I thought this machine would be a quick and easy way to flatten those tops and hasten my time spent sanding. Despite this being one of the biggest, best, and most expensive drum sanders on the market, it is very light weight if you intend to sand 25-36" wide table tops. After a year, i eventually gave up on this practice. The build and support of the table are not heavy enough to handle 1.5" thick pieces of size. I later added the support tables, which did little to help with sanding long and heavy pieces. Unlike a planer where you can be slightly off parallel with feeding stock through, you really need to have your work piece perfectly lined up on a sander. I had many gouges and burns before giving up on it. With that said, this machine was fantastic for working with pieces under 4' long. I sanded close to 100 end grain boards of various sizes for restaurants and home chefs, and the sander always performed well. The length of the drums let you do multiple pieces at once, which can speed up batching out multiples of something. Dual drums sounds great in theory, but in practice it can be annoying and finicky to get both grits to work well together. There is a very fine line between having the rear drum set low enough to remove the front drum's scratches, and being set too low that it burns and bogs down every pass. This is something you can experiment a lot with to get right over time. On some grits, i wouldnt bother with wrapping the rear drum. I found dust collection to be satisfactory with my 3hp cyclone and the two 4" ports. Wrapping the drums was as easy and efficient as all their other sanders with tensioned clips. Sandsmart worked pretty well, although it wont entirely prevent burning. Still, the technology seems to be the same as it is today. The table height mechanism is something that is rough and unrefined. The thread pitch is too coarse and i found adjusting the height precisely to be the bigger disappointments of the sander. The slop between gears to transfer the height to the other side of the table didnt help. You would get small amounts of backlash from this imperfect fit. From what i can tell looking at the manual and photos of the newest 37x2 version, i dont think this has changed at all. Finally, the conveyor tracking used to cause me fits until i replaced the shredded abrasive belts with an expensive rubber one. The belt was $400ish if i remember correctly, but it will last forever and tracks better. For $100+/-, those abrasive belts are way too flimsy and track poorly. One small rip will lead to the belt self destructing in the near future. It doesnt take much. Depending on your use, i would not recommend buying a new 37x2. It is incredibly expensive at $5000+, and i dont think you gain much application over the 25" model for half the price. The motors are the same, the weight is similar, and the things you would want to sand with the 37x2--table tops, countertops, islands, work bench tops, live edge slabs--are far too large and heavy to effectively send through the machine. If you are able to buy it used like me, then i think this can be a really great hobbyist machine as long as you dont expect too much of its abilities. Otherwise, i would recommend saving your money for a widebelt to perform the work you want to, or save money and buy the 25x2. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catco Posted March 14, 2018 Report Share Posted March 14, 2018 Very nice write up and review. I would throw in a bulleted list to make it a bit easier on the eyes to read and pull out all the relevant information, but overall that is a great write up based on years of experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted March 14, 2018 Report Share Posted March 14, 2018 So did you replace it? if yes, with what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted March 14, 2018 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2018 Nope, plan on scaling back as much as i can in terms of wood and machinery the next 2 months in preparation for moving. Sold this for just shy of 3 grand and put that back in my pocket for another day. I will need to consider what space i am working with at the next property, but i doubt ill own a drum sander like this again. As I mention in the review, this model, the 50x2, and the big woodmasters are in no man's land between much less expensive smaller drum sanders and small wide belt sanders. We'll see if i miss this thing in the coming months. For right now, it is a relief it's one less heavy thing i need to move, and regaining the space is awesome. I might move the jointer to its spot, which is shoulder to shoulder with my planer. Give my saw/shaper a bit more breathing room for the tilt away power feeder I ordered yesterday. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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