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Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
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 Easy-to-use adjusters make compensating for belt stretch simple, fast, and tool-free. | |||
 A large crank changes the height of the sanding drum and ensure precision cut depth changes are easy to make. |
 Twin motors provide the sanding power you need. View larger. |
 The drum is specifically designed to run smoothly and dissipate heat. |
 A large, four-inch dust port helps keep your shop clean. |
 The ability to safely sand wood from 3 inches thick to 1/32 inch ensures versatility. |
At the heart of the 16-32 Plus is the sanding drum, which is specifically designed for smooth running and the dissipation of heat. Measuring 16 inches in length with a five-inch diameter, this precision-machined and balanced extruded aluminum drum is self-cooling to help prevent heat-related damage of the wood or sanding strip under load. For added peace of mind, the sanding drum turns on sealed and permanently lubricated one-inch-diameter ball bearings for a long, smooth operating life.
Additionally, the drum height and downward roller pressure are both user adjustable to virtually eliminate snipe.
Handles a Wide Range of Material Sizes
The 16-32 Plus handles a wide range of material sizes quickly and easily. It can sand materials as thick as three inches, as thin as 1/32 inch, and anywhere in-between. Unlike planers--which often have a minimum length requirement of a foot or more--the 16-32 Plus can safely handle pieces as short as 2-1/4 inches.
The open frame design also lets you sand pieces measuring up to 32 inches wide by making two passes. Additionally, a camber adjustment makes it easy to prevent "witness marks" when making two passes on wide boards.
Infinitely Variable Feed Rate for Flexibility
The infinitely variable feed rate and the wide range of sanding grits available combine to handle fast rough work or fine sanding on any species of wood. At the same time, the generous, stable conveyor platform makes turning material very accurate while smoothing the surface at the same time.
Dual Motors for Power and Control
The 16-32 Plus comes equipped with two high quality motors: a 1-1/2 HP, (rated using continuous duty cycle) 1 phase, 110-volt, 14 Amp motor that spins the sanding drum at a consistent 1725 RPM, and a direct drive 43 in./lbs. torque motor that drives the conveyor belt separately. Both are TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled) motors designed to operate in a potentially dusty environment.
For added protection, a safety keyed on/off switch with overload protection controls the sanding drum and is front-mounted for operating convenience. And an infinitely variable-speed control on the conveyor belt produces the ultimate finish at a rate from zero to 10 feet per minute.
Patented Trackers for Quick and Easy Adjustments
Jet's patented conveyor belt "trackers" eliminate the need for manual belt adjustments, ensuring precise results. Independent tracking adjusters on either side of the conveyor are easily accessible and simple to use should tracking adjustments become necessary--as when a new conveyor belt may need slight tracking or tensioning adjustments after it breaks in.
Reinforced Steel Conveyor Bed and No-Give Power Feed for Consistency
A precision-flattened reinforced steel conveyor bed holds the stock flat during sanding. A reliable no-give power feed belt provides a consistent, smooth sanding action to provide the finest results.
Dust Port for Efficient Dust Collection
To help maintain healthy air quality in your shop, and to make sure your vision isn't obscured by dust, the hinged top cover has a four-inch diameter dust port molded into the upper shroud to help evacuate most of the dust created as you work. Connect to an efficient dust collector like the JET DC1100 for best results.
Performax Spring Clip for Quick Changes
The 16-32 Plus also includes a special spring clip invented by Performax that holds the end of the sandpaper roll. This clever invention makes for quick and easy paper changes, saving you time and stress.
The 16-32 Plus weighs 145 pounds and is backed by a five-year warranty.
About JET: A History of Sharing New, Feature-Rich Products
Opened in 1958 after the founder of the company, Leslie P. Sussman, took the first Boeing Jet Airplane trip from Seattle, Washington to Japan, JET began as a small dealer that sold air hoists and trolleys out of a single hardware store in Seattle. Over the years, JET has carried everything from snowmobiles, transmitter radios, and forklifts to nylon stockings, but by the early 1970s, metalworking had become the base of their business line. And by the 1980s, JET had expanded into the realm of woodworking. Today, you'll find that JET offers a wide range of popular woodworking tools that are backed with best-in-class features and excellent service.
What's in the Box
Drum sander, 80-grit abrasive strip, 100-grit abrasive belt, TufTool, metal stand with shelf, and one box of ready-to-wrap abrasives.
Amazon.com
Parallel alignment of the drum is a simple turn of a precision thumbscrew on the side of the machine, while competing machines require two wrenches. Making this adjustment quickly and accurately is critical. When sanding larger boards in two passes, it's best to set the drum slightly off parallel so you end up with a small hump in the middle, which the user can quickly fix with a random orbit sander, rather than ending up with a valley, which ruins the piece. This Performax also features a ceramic tracking guide to reduce the number of adjustments needed during sanding. Worried about snipe? You can adjust the foot-pounds of pressure and/or the contact to the roller. Try that with other drum sanders. Because the machine is of such burly construction and the parallel adjustment of the arm is so simple, the drum arm doesn't suffer from flexing problems. Use this tool instead of a planer, or park them side-by-side in your shop. This tool is a dream for small commercial shops or anyone who just hates sanding. --Nancy Gleason
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Customer Reviews
The problems some reviewers have had with this machine are:
1. There is a problem adjusting the tracking of the conveyer belt, which is like a giant portable belt sander. The belt can drift to one side or the other. The front roller is adjustable so the belt stays centered.
To facilitate this adjustment, Performax has included clever little captive wrenches built into the frame of the conveyer assembly. This should make the adjustment easy. However, mine drifted to the left and adjusting it had no effect. I ended up completely loosening all the adjusters, and starting over again. This time the belt centered and it was easy to adjust exactly to where it was supposed to be.
I suspect that the belt, which after all is 16" wide, might have been just a hair out of square and all the adjusting served to stretch it out to a perfect rectangle. I believe the problem is that some belts may be more out of square than others. The actual mechanism is unlikely to be defective.
2. Adjusting the sanding drum so it is parallel to the conveyer belt is obviously important, but it is not easy to do. There is a knob that you turn to move the outer end of the drum up and down until it is set correctly. However, one must loosen 4 (!) bolts to free the assembly so it will move and then tighten them to hold it in place. The act of tightening them moves the adjustment out of place. If you are a zillionith of an inch off on the inside, then you are way off 16" away on the outboard end. One can spend a lot of time messing with this.
Amazon recommends setting the outer end a teeny bit up when sanding panels wider than the drum. This will result in a high spot in the middle of the panel which is better than low spots or grooves caused by the outer end of the drum digging into the wood. However, adjusting the drum is such a pain that most people will be content to set it once and leave it.
I set mine to be just a tiny bit up, an unmeasureable amount. I send my boards destined for glue-up twice through on the final sanding , turned around the second time, so that each board side is equally thick on all edges.
3. Replacing the sandpaper just takes a little practice. Clearly, it must be installed properly to work well. The paper rolls onto the drum and each end is secured by little levered clips in the ends of the drum. A little tool is supplied to loosen the inbord clip, but I find that just just reaching and pulling it up with a finger is easier.
4. Some users have problems with the drum motor overload breaker popping. Pushing the reset button starts it up again. This is all by design so that you do not try to sand off more than you should in one pass or set the conveyer belt speed too high.
You must sand at a shallow depth and at low feed rate. If you think the sanding process is too slow and get impatient, just think of hand sanding. Even set at a crawl, the machine is way faster than you. All this depends on the grit, the kind wood, the width of the wood as well as the conveyer speed and the depth of cut.
I am careful to set a shallow sanding depth and a pretty slow feed rate and so I rarely have to reset it. If it does pop I just slow down the conveyer belt some more. This is a small machine with limited horsepower for small shops. There is a reason they make those 30 hp one-ton units. Like Norm's.
4. Some have complained about slop in the drum adjuster. The crank that moves the drum up and down has a lot of play in it so it is hard to feel how much actual adjustment is going on when the crank is turned. Tactile feel is very important when you are trying to adjust things just a hair. These sorts of measurements are too small to show up on the depth guage.
The adjuster should be equiped with an adjustable friction device. Several of my small tools have that feature and clearly a $1000 machine should. And I really miss an adjustable positive depth stop like my Makita planer. This would allow for a repeatable final sanding depth.
5. Snipe has been reported as a problem and it is. It is very difficult to hold the wood perfectly level as it enters and exits the drum. Setting up multiple roller stands is not easy and others have mentioned that the optional in and out-feed tables are difficult to level as well.
Some sort of built-in support is necessary for this machine to work properly. The tables, or other devices, should have been built in to the design and included in the price. This should not have been an option. It is like making the tires optional on a car. Speaking of options, I have a new Grizzly 6" jointer that came with built-in wheels. Very nice. Really quite necessary for the small shop. Aftermart wheels are available elsewhere.
So, what is my advice? This machine can be adjusted to function perfectly. When it is set up properly it is indeed a very useful and important tool. The problem is that the adjustments are too difficult and so many machines are out of adjustment and simply do not work as they should. In addition, not including the tables introduces an unnecessary cheap and greedy factor.
Performax is clearly not losing any money selling these units for $1000. Add on the the price of sandpaper and options and it is an even more costly option for the small shop. A tweak to the drum depth adjuster, a redesign of the drum levelling mechanism, a positive stop for the sanding depth, incorporating feed tables and making the stand mobile are really simple and inexpensive upgrades that lucky owners in the future hopefully will enjoy. I note that Grizzly now has a comparable consumer model and I suspect other manufactorers will enter the market. That competition will hopefully lower the price and increase the utility.
The whole idea of smoothing wood with rocks glued to fabric seems sort of strange, really. Perhaps the future will bring lasers or microwaves or something modern. In the meantime, be aware that sanders create a lot of dust, the fine and dangerous kind, much worse than shavings and such. I looked into shop dust control, hoping to get a simple vacuum, and found a whole confusing and expensive anti-dust world out there. A portable vac is not the best thing to use for high volumns of fine dust. Big dust collectors, cyclones and those sorts of things are more appropriate for this machine, but are very speciallized and expensive. I use the screaming Sears vac now (are all Sears product planners deaf?), but for many reasons that will have to change.
I can't go below 3 stars if, in the end, the machine actually performs as it should, but the inconvenience and cheapness factors noted above and in other reviews cost it a couple of stars.
The machine is very heavy, about 150 pounds shipping weight. The UPS man was kind enough to help me by unloading it into my garage shop. Set up took about 90 minutes, the instuction book was very detailed and the pictures were very helpful. The stand is very strong and steady, the casters are large enough to really move around on the concrete floor. The hardest part about the setup is the leveling of the drum to the conveyor belt. I had to do it twice before it was exact. The first time I did not use good judgment, I used a wooden board to help align the drum. In testing the first piece out, it was off quite a bit. I then followed the instuctions, and used a metal level on edge, and the results were well within the .010 inch tolererance as stated in the manual.
That all said and done, and after setting up the dust collection system to the 4" overhead port, I was ready to start sanding. I do a lot of resawing for the scroll saw, and this drum sander should be a staple for resawing. Each 1/4 turn of the control handle moves the drum 1/64", making it very easy to control the depth of "cut". You control the speed of the belt from about a rate of 1 foot/minute to 100 feet per minute. So depending on the type of sandpaper grade and hardness of wood, you control the speed and depth of cut.
The nice feature of the unit is it only takes about 2 minutes to change the sandpaper from the drum to another grade and you are back in business again. So it is very quick and easy to change paper as you prep the lumber. The first few passes in 80 grit (depending on how well the resawing operation went), then switch to 120 and finally a pass at 180. The only warning on the sanding process, make sure the grain is going with the sander, this is NOT a vibrating hand sander. With the measurement indicator on the side of the sander, you can consistently sand to the same thickness, time after time, board after board.
I am very happy and pleased with the Performax 16-32 Drum Sander. I am now doing a lot more resawing (saving money), not just when I have to because of lumber availability. No issues, No problems. Just a nice sanding operation and quick change sandpaper.
UPDATE: MARCH 7, 2007;
I have been using this sander for over 5 years now, and not one performance issue. It is used about an average of 10 hours per week, sanding down the re-sawed wood from the band saw. It is still very precise and accurate in terms of measurements. It is consistent with the final quality product. One of my best buys for the shop.
I had one very minor problem. The conveyer belt has a speed dial that is also it's "off" switch. when I turned the dial fully counter clockwise there was just the slightest "click". You could feel it more than hear it. Althought the dial clicked the conveyer belt would not fully stop. I took the control box apart (4 screws) and saw that the speed control was slightly bent out of alignment. I adjusted it and the detent of the click was much more pronounced and the conveyer belt now stops fully when it's in the off position. Total time of fix: about 5 minutes.
I bought the Performax Sander to help build guitars but I'll be sanding a chess board tonight. I'm sure it will make life a LOT easier. Trying to sand chessboards by hand always leaves ripples. This machine should allow me to sand it FLAT to 220 grit and then I can use my orbital sander to smooth it out for the finish.
If you buy this I would suggest also buying the castor set so you can move the machine around more easily. It's a bit heavy when assembled and unless you have a space on both the input and output side you'll need to be able to move it around. Also, the small amount that I've used it already has me wanting to buy the infeed/outfeed table assesories. You should also get a sanding belt cleaning "eraser" (as described in the video that comes with the machine). Some woods tend to clog the sandpaper and the belt cleaner will extend the life of your belts.
The sander was relatively easy to assemble and ran as described out of the box. Two issues:
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