Customer Reviews

JET 628900 Mini 10-Inch 1-Horsepower Benchtop Drum Sander, 115-Volt 1-Phase

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I do a lot of work with wild grained woods...such as walnut, burl maple, mesquite, etc. My planer often would tear these boards up pretty bad. Plus the planer is not the tool for fixing the cupping and small twists that are epidemic with this type of wood. The 10x20 does solve most of these problems. It's not a planer, so using it to dimension lumber is a long slow chore, but with a good resaw blade on the bandsaw, I can get close to the dimension I want then finish with the sander. I really like being able to take the cup and crown off boards before I resaw them. This ability alone makes the purchase price worthwhile. I made a 1/4" plywood template of the factory strip and buy rolls of sandpaper, clamp the template over a strip on my bench, then cut new strips with a sharp utility knife. Saves a lot of money over buying the factory made ones. Changing the strips at first is a little frustrating, but by the time you have changed them out 6 or 8 times it gets to be routine. The "TOUGH TOOL" that was included with my sander does really help, especially with the inboard side. I had some tracking problems with the feed belt also. A friend who is a machinest, was watching me run some coca bola strips thru the machine, noted that the machine was "racked" in relation to the base. It was such a small amount that I would have never noticed it. With the machine still mounted to the base, he had me loosen all the bolts holding the base together, and the bolts holding the machine to the base. He then "wiggled" the machine and had me retighten the bolts holding the machine to the base, then tighten the bolts on the base starting at the top and working down. Haven't had a tracking problem since.
The four inch dust chute is great, does a good job of catching most of the dust.
I haven't had the limiter kick the motor off yet, or experienced a piece flying across the room as some reviewers have noted. I do tend to use a slower feed rate then is probably neccesary, but this is a hobby so I'm not in any hurry anyway.
The finish, especially on exotic hardwoods is very good, even when I only go to 180 grit.
I can now do in 15 minutes the same amount of work that use to take me a couple of hours. I have only used the double pass method twice now, once on an 18" wide piece of black mesquite and once on a 20" wide piece of spanish cedar. Adjusting the bar was not the nightmare I had invisioned, both pieces came thru as flat as I could ever hope for. This little machine is a very welcome addition to my shop. It is ruggedly built and very solid. I expect to get a lot of years of use out of it and would reccommend it to anyone who is "space challenged", but still wants a good drum sander.
Update...I've found that if you are sanding boards much more than 9" wide, you need to treat them as if you were doing a much wider board...that is to say double pass them. If you try to run a 10" board thru, using the full width of the drum, you will develope a ridge on the inboard side. Not really a big deal,easy to cure.
Still love this little machine, recommend highly.

I bought this sander for $500 from Woodcraft for my guitar shop. When I got it home, I unpacked it and was quite pleased by the apparent quality of the machine. It sanded quite well, and the sanding belt was very easy to change. Also, the overload protection worked flawlessly. However, no matter what I did, the belt would not track properly. I called Performax, and they sent me a new conveyor belt (twice), but still, it tracked hard left. This is a problem because eventually the belt eats itself from going off the side of the rollers and jams into a bracket under the table. I took the sander back to woodcraft for repair (they were very cool about this), and they could not get it to track properly either. This has apparently been a problem with the 16-32 as well. Well, to make a long story short, Performax told them it would be 1-2 months for a replacement part or unit. After a month at Woodcraft (who apparently replaced one of the rollers), they gave it back and the darn thing STILL will not track properly. No matter how I adjust the rollers, it always tracks to the left!!! I'm VERY disappointed here- after years of hearing how great Jet and Performax are (they're all owned by WMH tool group), I thought I'd have no problems. Oh well- maybe it doesn't pay to go with the name....I realize that this unit is made in the far east, but I'd hope that Performax wouldn't put it's good name and valuable reputation on such a piece of junk!

After reading many of the reviews I was a little hesitant to purchase this sander but with 30 years of mechanical experience behind me I decided I could fix it no matter what. Was I ever dissapointed - there was nothing wrong with this sander! The tracking was perfect, belt tension dead on, and the sanding drum was set within .003". I build small items. I wanted something to take out planer marks and resaw imperfections on small pieces. It does this perfectly. I don't know how large a hunk of wood would be realistic to try and sand but for small boxes, toys, splines and the like it is perfect.

I've been using this tool for several months now doing both exterior trim (Western Red Cedar) and interior trim (Douglas Fir) for a house I'm building. I've also had a chance to run some Teak and Mahogany through my machine. Overall the results have been outstanding, but the machine is somewhat frustrating to use at times.

My biggest beef is the drum motor thermal cutoff. As previous reviewers have stated, it's extremely sensitive to even the slightest overload. Here's an example: I was running a cedar 2x6 through, using an 80 grit belt. I advanced the depth adjustment ~1/4 turn (~ 1/128th of an inch) after a previously successful pass. It gets about halfway through the board when the protection circuit shuts down the motor. At this point you get to stand around twiddling your thumbs for 1-2 minutes waiting for the breaker to reset itself. Are they joking? 1/128th of an inch in a very soft wood like cedar is an overload? This is typical. I don't know if I got an overly sensitive machine, but I can't recall a session where it didn't shut down at least once on me. I have a planer, so I don't use this for heavy stock removal. If you have ideas about using this machine as a substitute for a planer, you have a mountain of grief lying in wait.

Another frustration is belt tracking. It took a while for me to get the drive belt running true. It seemed like just when you had it, something would stretch or shift and it would go out of wack again. The adjustment mechanism is sort of a Mickey Mouse affair, making the frequent adjustments that much more of a pain. I will say though that the belt now seems to have stabilized and it's been running true for some time now. Luckily I haven't seen any of the severe wear other reviewers have experienced, becuase replacing the drive belt is an expensive proposition.

A final annoyance is snipe, but this has a lot to do with technique. I typically use my machine with roller stands on each side. If a board reaches the end of the stand and drops or bounces a bit, it can produce a nasty mid-length snipe. These cause one to groan especially hard because the whimpy motor means you might be looking at 5-6 additional passes to get rid of the damage. I've now learned to be very careful to support the workpiece as it feeds in and out. Currently I don't have the optional table extensions installed. I have a feeling they would help the situation.

On the upside, the results have been well worth all the effort. This machine leaves an unbelievably uniform surface. It's just the ticket for removing mill glaze and planer marks leaving a surface ready for final finish. The dust collection is also a plus. These machines make a huge amount of very fine dust. Even when only hooked to a shop vac, the dust chute picks up almost all the dust. I would think hooking it to a 4in shop line would be even more effective. Another plus is the belt installation. It goes about as smoothly as you could expect and the Tuff-Tool they include does come in quite handy. Once you get the hang of it, you can change belts in probably around a minute or two.

When I first got this sander a year ago,
1. first thing the conveyer belt fell off and tore itself to pieces.
2. 220 grit sand paper just doesn't stay in place on this sander's drum. Just today, 2 wraps of new 220 grit paper self destructed. The clamps just don't hold.
3. I can never get hold of performax (WMH? tool group) for any technical assistance. It's one of those "I am either on the phone with another customer or away from my desk" but they never seem to come back.
4. The sand paper is expensive especially in precut rolls so I am going to get bulk rolls so losing a wrap is not so painful.
5. The alignment of the drum to the coveyer doesn't stay put very well.
6. You can't use just any dust collector to collect the rather fine dust. It plugged up my first one but now I have a cyclone and it is satisfactory.

BUT, NOW I am addicted to the wonderful concept of wide sanding (no tear out anymore), so I will keep on trying to get around these problems.

If you buy this machine and get a "GOOD" one, then you will probably have made a good investment, it will perform as advertised, and you will very satisfied. If you get a "BAD" one, it will not perform as advertised, you will probably not be able to get satisfaction from Performax or Amazon, and you will be miserable.

Based on the reviews that I read, the probability of getting a "BAD" one appears to be at least 10%. This indicates exceedingly poor quality control for this day and age.

If it falls in the "BAD" category it will likely be because the conveyor belt will not track, and/or the DC motor stops at the slightest indication of overload. No matter how much you try, you probably won't overcome these obstacles.

If you decide to buy this sander, I recommend that you buy it only from a local retailer, with a clear understanding that you can return it to the retailer within 30 days, for any reason, for a full refund. If you buy it via the internet you will not have these options.

I purchased one from a local distributor with this understanding, in writing. I got a "BAD" one. The conveyor belt would not track, and the DC motor kicked out repeatedly at the lightest load levels I could put on it.

I tossed it back into the box, took it back to the distributor, and got my money back. I ended up happy. The distributor did not.

I've had this unit for about a year. I've run several hundred feet of wood through the machine so far. The reason why I got a drum sander is that my planer would take chunks instead of cuts of wood with switchback grain. The drum sander eliminates that problem plus the snipe is gone too. You are limited to a max thickness of 3" though. I cut thick veneers 1/8" on my bandsaw and this machine is perfect for cleaning up those pieces. I never got good results using the planer on such thin wood - again, too much tearout. I would have liked to had the 16-32, but the 10-20 fits better into my small workshop.

No faults were found in packaging, fit or finish. I've had no tracking problems and changing the belt is easy. I've used the belt tool a few times, but I don't bother with it any more. If your fingers are large, you may have difficulty with the belt change.

Using 80 grit paper and the feed rate set to ~75% I find I can consistently take off 1/64" of a 6" wide board of red oak. This is more of a finesse machine - you're not going to easily remove 1/16" at a time. I can tell when the motor will tend to overload by the sound - I just crank down the feed rate for that section. If the motor stops, I hit the drum power button, let it run through and pass it back through at a slower feed rate. That way I won't have to futz with the depth setting - handy when thicknessing many boards to the same size. I rarely have the overload breaker kick off anymore.

A previous reviewer reported that the torque limit (heater) could be set too low for the motor. I agree. First let me say that the Performax 10 x 20 is not a thickness planer but it does come with a very course (60grit) abrasive installed which would lead one to think that you could take a 1/32" or so off of a narrow soft wood. I found that the Performax is so sensitive that the slightest adjustment can cause it to kick out half way through a pass. If you want to run, say two 2" wide strips through at the same time, forget it.

On the up side, it is well built, solid and a good addition to my shop. I am very glad that I bought it but when I see David Marks run three or four strips side by side through his machine I wonder if I made the right decision.

I bought the Performax 10-20 because of it's compact size. For my purposes, mostly making boxes, I didn't need more capacity, and I didnt' want to give up any more floor space than I had to. When I got to work with it, I was much impressed. Although the documentation could be clearer, setup was simple and fairly straightforward. With little effort, I had the feed belt tracking properly and the drum adjusted with only .001 inch difference between the left and right sides of the sanded piece. Everything about the machine feels solid, and it looks like it should work well for a long time. I do recommend that you purchase the infeed/outfeed tables (Performax part 608005) if you're sanding longer pieces. It would be nice if Amazon carried them, but you can order them through any Performax dealer. I ordered a pair for $87 from my local Woodcraft.

I picked up my 10-20 at an in-store sale from Rockler. There isn't a lot of assembly to do, which is a good thing. But the adjustments can be a pain, and the poor manual exacerbates that pain. In order to align the drum, one must remove two trunnion bolts at the top of the sander, then rotate a knob directly under the handwheel to align the drum. The manual doesn't tell you the effect that rotating the knob counter clockwise or clockwise has on drum alignment. They instruct you to put a metal ruler or thickness gauge under the drum to check drum alignment. There are two spring-loaded tension rollers on either side of the drum which obscure view of anything you put under the main drum. You have to lift up on the roller to observe the clearance. The knob that adjusts the drum really just moves it in a horizontal arc. I'm not really sure how that ensures the drum is aligned parallel to the feed table.

The manual has instructions for each step, but then refers you to other parts of the manual to accomplish a task. For instance, it tells you to check tracking of the feed belt, but then directs you to another section to adjust tension. Performax provides a nifty "TUF" tool to help installation of the abrasive strips. The instructions direct you to insert the looped end of the tool into "the hole in the end of the take-up lever", but there's no picture of the hole or the takeup lever. Just a picture of the tool disappearing inside the drum. So you are left to imagine what they are talking about. Being an engineer with a tinkering nature, I figured it out. All the figures are photographs in black and white, and they are small. In some cases, larger drawings would have made more sense.

Another thing the manual doesn't tell you is that you can reverse the drum-side base to allow a wider stance on a tool stand. The base is an L-shaped steel that is tucked under the machine as assembled. One pic of the sander installed on the Jet base shows it in the wider base position. I used a Sears tool stand and made my own mobile base.

Another curiosity is that the packaging does not indicate what grit of abrasive comes with the machine. (It's one pre-installed 80 grit strip.) That would have been nice to know - I could have saved $25 on a package of Jet 80 grit strips.

Once together, though, the machine ran flawlessly, save some finicky adjustments on the conveyer belt tracking. Don't try using this machine with the coarser grits unless you have dust collection running. It can put out some serious dust, and without dust collection, it gets all over everthing, including inside the sander, where it's hard to vacuum out.

For the price (at least my price of $429), this was hard to pass up. It serves my purposes just fine and saves me a lot of time cleaning up after resawing veneers.