New model Jet 16/32 drum sander

[TerryMcK]

I've just had mine delivered so will do a review of it once I get it set up.

Note this is the newly designed 2018 model with SandSmart and tool-less parallel drive conveyor belt bed adjustment (like the Powermatic PM2244). It arrived in 3 boxes - one of them really heavy - and I have them on my pallet truck in the main part of the shop at the moment.

Just going to a wine tasting (hic!) so I might not be in a fit state to assemble it tomorrow morning . Voluntary redundancy paid off (hence the purchase) and the good news is I start the new job some time mid November so plenty of time to play.

[RichardA]

Are you going to use the new sander to sharpen the points that stick up in the moat?

[TerryMcK]

I had been promising myself a drum sander for quite a while and I had a visit to an Axminster Tools store (Warrington UK) to have a look at what was available.
There were quite a few in my price range:

• Jet 10-20 Plus Drum Sander £941.30
• Axminster Trade ST-480 Drum/Brush Sander £1,739.50
• Powermatic PM2244 Drum Sander £2,269.50
• Jet JWDS 1632 Drum Sander £1,310.98

However I dismissed the more expensive Axminster and Powermatic sanders as they were much too big for my modest 410 square feet shop. This left the two Jet machines as contenders.

Most of the work I do needs the larger capacity of up to 32" and some guitars I make are less than 16" width so can be run straight the the sander in one pass. I dismissed the older and smaller Jet 10-20. This left the excellent JWDS 1632 which has been recently redesigned.

New features

• Tool-less abrasive replacement
• Sandsmart™ monitoring
• Parallelism adjustment by one simple knob
• Conveyor drive now pulls the workpiece

The new features are the easy tool-less abrasive retaining clips. This make changing belts an absolute breeze.
The other new features are the conveyor drive motor now pulls the workpiece through the machine, rather than the previous push method. This is supposed to give a much better finish.
Sandsmart™ control continuously monitors the sanding load and automatically reduces the speed of the conveyor if the load becomes too high.
Conveyor bed parallelism is adjusted by turning a simple dial exactly like the much praised Powermatic PM2244. This alone is well worth the outlay to buy this excellent machine.

So I ordered one and added the extra infeed/outfeed tables and the casters. As my shop is relatively small I need to have the ability to move every machine around.

Basic photo showing bare machine without extension tables nor casters

The sander arrived the morning after I ordered it with free shipping from Axminster Tools overnight - astonishing! The shipment comprised 3 boxes on a pallet one of them very heavy.

Stand Assembly
The first thing to do was to unpack the box containing the stand. This is a very substantial folded steel structure which is made from 0.1" (2.54mm) thick heavy gauge steel. This has been powder coated with a white finish. The nuts and coach bolts are made from high tensile steel. All very promising so far.

Stand components

The instructions in the manual are very easy to understand and assembly of the stand on my assembly table took about 30 minutes. The only thing to watch was to make sure the stand has a few components which require holes lining up with each other making up the top of the stand. I used a couple of 3/8" drill shanks to ensure the machine would mount properly. 

Aligning holes using drill shanks

Assembly of the stand was then relatively straight forward.

Stand assembled in sub assemblies

The nuts were only finger tightened at first and then the stand stood on its feet to settle. Then the nuts were fulled tightened with a 12mm socket. I'm not sure what size bolt would be supplied to the USA.

The casters were then installed. It is not necessary to have a thin wrench to hold the fixed portion of the caster shaft as you can get enough grip with your fingers on the circular cup part of the caster.

4 expensive high quality casters came in the box

Tighten the caster with a ring wrench while holding the cupped part of the shaft.
 

The finished stand

 

Mounting the machine to the stand.

Cardboard packaging removed from the machine

The plywood sheets are secured to the underside of the machine with cap head screws.
The machine is very heavy and can't really be lifted by one person so either get a helper or use and engine lifting hoist to lift it out of the box. I got a helper to assist me and we lifted the machine onto the stand temporarily at 90 degrees to its fixed position. This is so the plywood boards can be removed from the bottom of the machine along with the plastic bag the machine is wrapped in.
Then the machine was turned through 90 degrees to its final position. There are 4 holes with welded captive nuts on the underside of the machine which align with the holes in the stand. The 4 cap head screws that held the plywood on are inserted, tightened and the assembly is complete.

All that is left to do is mount the winding handle onto the vertical shaft protruding from the top of the machine.

The handle is secured to the shaft with an integral socket grub screw.
 

Finished initial assembly

The handle was then wound to open the mouth and there was a small transportation spacer to discard.

Mounting the infeed/outfeed tables

I had purchased the extra infeed/outfeed tables which effectively double the support area of the machine. These are mounted to the machine using 4 brackets and some more cap head allen screws.
It is essential that the tables are mounted slightly below the level of the conveyor.
I use a 1 metre long steel rule on the conveyor surface. This is gently clamped to the conveyor simply by winding the stationary sanding drum onto the rule.
Then I used a thin steel rule as a spacer to adjust the infeed table (on its slotted holes) to give the desired clearance. This procedure is repeated for the other side of the infeed table. Then the same procedure is repeated on the outfeed table.

Adjusting the outfeed table
 
Control panel
After plugging the power cord into a UK 13 Amp 230 volts socket I tested the machine for power. There are a pair of push buttons one green and the other red which are self explanatory. The green turns on power and the red turns it off.

The other controls are a rocker switch which turns on the power to the sanding roller.
The remaining rotary control is used to set the speed of the conveyor and is marked in percent 0-100
All worked fine.

UK Specification

• Abrasive Roll Width 76 mm (3")
• Dust Extraction Outlet 100 mm (4")
• Feed Speed 0 to 3 m/min continuously variable (0 to 9.8 feet/min)
• Model JDS 1632
• Nett Weight 71 kg (156 pounds)
• Overall L x W x H 1,007 mm x 508 mm x 1,269 mm (39.6" x 20" x 50")
• Power 1.1 kW
• Rating Trade
• Sanding Drum Diameter 127 mm (5")
• Sanding Thickness Min\Max 0.8 mm to 75 mm (0.031" to 3")
• Sanding Width Double Pass 812 mm (32")
• Sanding Width Single Pass 406 mm (16")
• Table Size 456 mm x 420 mm (18" x 16.5")
• Voltage 230 V

Initial testing and adjustments.
The first thing to do was connect a 4" flexible hose connected to my dust extractor to the top mounted 4" port.
I started with a planed 12" length of oak that still had planer ripple marks in. While the machine was stationery I wound the depth handle until the sanding roller just touched the board then I backed the sanding roller off a hair. Then I removed the board and started up the machine. As I hadn't used it before I set the conveyor speed at 50 and switched on the drum motor. 
Then the oak board was placed onto the conveyor and it pulled the board through the machine. All worked OK but as the drum was retracted slightly no sanding took place.
I wound the handle down a quarter turn and fed the board through again. One full turn of the handle moves the roller 1.6mm or 1/16" so it is very easy to make small adjustments as there is a scale on the handle surround. Sanding took place and I was surprised just how quiet the machine is. No ear defenders needed. Another quarter turn and another pass resulted in total removal of planing ripple. The machine is supplied with 80 grit paper.

I then turned the board over and did the same on the other side. The finish obtained was suitable for running an orbital sander over.

Sanded board

You can of coarse buy different grits and the quick change spring clips facilitate quick grit changeover.
I had bought a couple of rolls of Abranet 3" x 25metre long abrasive, 1 roll in 80 grit the other in 120 grit. Removal of the original abrasive was super quick.

The length of the original Jet supplied abrasive is roughly 2.3 metres which is just less than 8 feet. I decided to make up a template to cut my own abrasive. I used a sheet of 8 x 4 ply and cut off a 5 " width 8 feet long.

I then placed the original abrasive onto the board and held it down with spring clamps. Then using a Sharpie I marked the cut length and the end shapes onto the plywood. Then it was a simple matter of laying the new abrasive onto the plywood and using a box cutter cutting it to length and the end shaping.

Installation onto the machine is really easy using the integral spring clips on the roller winding the abrasive in a tight spiral ensuring that there is no overlap anywhere. The only thing I found was that the abrasive wore out my box cutter very quickly! It is abrasive after all.

Results
I ran through a board wider than the 16" width to test drum parallelism and found that out of the factory is was spot on. There was no discernible ridge when the board was rotated through 180 degrees and run through again on the same thickness setting.

If there was any adjustment needed then there is an adjuster on the open cantilever end and it looks super simple to adjust.

Conveyor parallelism adjuster

Dust collection was excellent and left only a tiny amount of dust on the conveyor. You do need an extractor with decent extraction flow rate though.

Conclusion.
This is an excellent addition to a small workshop and as the machine is trade rated should be able to run long hours every day without issue. The addition of the parallelism adjustment was a deal winner for me. There are no other machines at this price point with this excellent adjuster currently on sale in the UK. The nearest thing is the Powermatic PM2244 which is a considerable larger machine with a hefty price tag.

The machine is extremely well made out of substantial materials and comes with Jet's 3 year warranty. It should last me a long time.

Now I'm off to the shop to play with it.
 

[Chet]

Looks like an outstanding machine there Terry.  I know you have to be looking forward to using it.  Any ideas for a first project to give it a good test?

[TerryMcK]

23 minutes ago, Chet said:

Looks like an outstanding machine there Terry.  I know you have to be looking forward to using it.  Any ideas for a first project to give it a good test?

Yes Chet I have a few acoustic guitar parts (sides and soundboards) that I want to thickness. I have previously done these by hand and it is very easy to pull lumps out of thin boards (1/8” thick soundboards and even thinner sides and backs) with a hand plane. The drum sander will make it so much easier and less of my expensive sitka spruce going into the burn pile!

I have already used the sander to resurface a chopping board that had become bowed on the back and had a butchers block type of hollow on the face (caused by years of knives). My wife is now very happy that it doesn’t wobble around on the counter top anymore. It took about 5 minutes to level and resurface. I used that as an example to justify the cost LOL!

[Chet]

42 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

I used that as an example to justify the cost LOL!

Any time you can use a project that your wife wants as an excuse for a new tool it usually turns into a win.

[wdwerker]

Mark your template to prevent cutting the strips upside down (and completely useless) . I mark the back of the abrasive and it makes the razor knife blades last longer. A pair of the old fashioned scissors type tin snips work on cloth abrasive rolls too. 

[bushwacked]

wow... looks like a great little machine there. I wonder if this will replace the supermax love or at least be a strong contender ?? 

[TerryMcK]

Good point. We can’t get the Supermax range over in the UK but as far as I am aware the Supermax’s don’t have the parallel bed adjustment that this new Jet and the Powermatic machine has, so for that reason alone a Supermax wouldn’t be on my radar.

[wdwerker]

My SuperMax has bed parallel adjustments plus a lever that switches from perfectly parallel to slightly off which prevents a line/gouge when sanding boards wider than the drum. 

[Coop]

Congrats Terry! All of the upgrades on your model , I wish I had on mine. And I can’t think of anything else lacking. What is the US dollar conversion on yours? I need to start cutting my own paper. I did once at Steve’s suggestion but failed to order more paper. In fact, in needing some, I went to Rockler today and bought two boxes of four strips each for $30.00 ea.. Great review! 

[TerryMcK]

I know that all cantilever type drum sanders have some sort of parallel adjustment and I might not have been as clear as I meant to be. This Jet and the Powermatic share a similar one knob tool-less method of adjustment that other manufacturers don't currently have (AFAIK). This makes it super easy to adjust.

I'm not fond of chasing my tail by adjusting a machine with wrenches, testing, readjusting, tightening and locking off etc. I get enough grief from adjusting my planer when I change the blades. This one knob simple adjustment of the conveyor bed is a revelation for me.

Ken I'm not sure of the dollar conversion rate as there are probably other factors involved before it gets a final price in US stores - at the moment its around $1700 for the basic machine without extension tables or casters. But I'm sure the new Jet will arrive over in the US (if it is not over there already) soon. I did already mark my cutting template with "Grit side up" as I did read an article of a woman who bought a drum sander. She also bought a roll of Abranet to make her own belts. She then made the mistake of cutting a bunch, using the entire roll, but placed the new abrasive strips grit to grit with the original one. Then she cut the ends to suit. 

The resultant new strips were unfortunately mirror images of the original and did not fit the drum roller. She made a real expensive mistake but was big enough to admit it to the internet so others didn't make the same mistake. She probably reused the abrasive on a hand sanding pad as Mirka stuff is too expensive to throw away - who knows.

 

Incidently the Abranet I bought is Mirka Abranet Max which doesn't stretch as much as regular Abranet. Anybody else have any experience of Abranet Max?

 

[Chestnut]

The adjustment does look nice and easy. My only defense to the supermax is it's a 1 time adjustment. It took me a few min to dial it in but once you lock the bed parallel your done.

Do you have to remove a bolt to open the top to change the sand paper? My super max has a latch and it's super fast top open the top which is nice for cleaning the abrasive with a crepe block.

I never knew mirka made rolls for drum sanders. I'll have to look into that. Currently i use some pretty inexpensive stuff but it works well as long as i don't burn pitch into it.... which i just did again a couple days ago.

[TerryMcK]

 There is a also a latch to open the dust shroud making it quick.

The abrasive locks in with a spring clip at either end. Also the spring clips are mounted onto another spring loaded mechanism that automatically tensions the belt (within limits of course) so no loose abrasive turns. The Jet supplied abrasive is shown on the drum below

 

There is another manufacturer of sanding belts I can buy locally and that is made by Hermes and is called J-Flex. It is more expensive than the equivalent Mirka - roughly twice as expensive for the same length rolls. Obviously I haven't tried that one but I know it is not an open mesh structure and is a more traditional cloth backed abrasive. Any comments on Hermes is also welcome.

[Chestnut]

Yeah it looks a lot like the Supermax 16-32 that I have. It's like they were both originally designed by the same person and at some point diverged causing subtle differences.

[wdwerker]

Jet bought the  Performax smaller machine line years ago. The original company became SuperMax they came out with my 19/38 and your 16/32 then sold out to Laguna ( I think) . 

[bleedinblue]

My Supermax doesn't seem to hold parallel very well.  I've adjusted it (I think) three times in the past year I've had it.  It drives me nuts...I use a 16" wide piece of MDF covered in pencil and don't stop until I get even sanding across the width with a shallow cut.  Weeks or months later, I notice that I'm getting heavier contact on one side or the other.  I think that I need to adjust the top roller on the infeed side, it seems a bit too low and I think* it might be knocking the drum mechanism around from time to time.

[wdwerker]

I keep an eye on my SuperMax 19/38 with a pair of digital calipers and it's been behaving pretty well. And there is usually a few days each month that it gets run nonstop for 6-7 hours. I think the cast iron frame being so ridgid and careful handling of the infeed/conveyor/ outfeed tables is important.  But these days each model of a machine can behave slightly different depending on the features/flaws inherent in its design. The simple height adjustment wheel takes a few seconds to change a few inches but I didn't want the quick adjust feature.