Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good tool for price, but Delta quality is its weakness, November 6, 2000
I found this sander to be a great alternative to a disk/belt unit. The price point is great for the level of features. I do not have room for a disk/belt unit that would give me as large a disk. I rarely use the belt anyway. A miter guide track that accepts a full size miter bar is very useful. At 12" you get a legitimate 5.75" of effective sanding. You can get a precise level and square on the table, though it is not an easy adjustment. The table adjustments are hampered by the quailty of the castings and fittings. The unit is quite heavy (no aluminum!) and runs very stable on a bench. The flywheel effect helps it maintain power, though the 1/2 motor could be bigger. I would not pay the premium to get the 31-125. I looked at the 31-125 and with this unit I was getting most of the features at a great price. I've used it on maple and cherry and have been able to do both guided and freehand sanding and shaping without burning. I've fed a 4" section of 5/4 cherry for an endgrain polish and was very pleased with the results. Delta quality has been lacking over the last few years, this unit is no exception. Castings are not at all well finished. Even the quality of the nobs and bolts are below every competitor, even Rigid. I'm not sure how long Delta can survive on engineering good features, but producing mediocre quality. I will probably disasemble and rebuild this sander, tuning the castings, replacing the low quality fasteners and end up with a much better machine.
|
|
|
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Shoddy assembly, cheesy parts, July 20, 2001
Not happy with this purchase at all. Seems to be a lot of variance in the units. I looked at a unit built some years ago, and had a chance to work with it, and it was a dream. Smooth, quiet operation, solid construction, precise, clean fit among parts.When I received mine, the fan cover had slipped, shearing off the screws that hold it in place. Amazon was excellent in getting a new one to me. The new one works as well as can be expected, but is extremely disappointing. The assembly and stop set to keep things in square is cheap and has excessive play. The milling on the mini table was miserable -- obvious quality control problems. I had to machine the table down myself. (I chose to do this rather than getting another unit shipped out.) I finally have a machine that works fairly well, but I had to put in a lot of effort and time to get it to that point. I would suggest carefully examining all other options before purchasing this Delta Disc Sander. Happy shop time....
|
|
|
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great tool, not outstanding, January 3, 2004
This is basically a good sander but there are some issues that I discovered. The wheel has axial runout of 0.020 inch at the rim which surprised me, I expected something more like 0.002 inch. Changing the sanding disks is time-consuming. The stock disk is 60 grit, too coarse for my work. It took me an hour to change it. This is because the stock disk leaves all its glue residue on the platter, which is very hard to clean off. I used acetone and steel wool. The platter is smaller than standard so I had to trim the new disk so it would work at all. The angle gauge is very cheesy, it is fixed at 2 points and bows off its mounting surface in between. Despite these problems, I was able to get my job done nicely with this tool. It runs real quiet, is very powerful, and basically user-friendly. The precision table and large size are nice. The 45 degree position stop is not very "crisp" but may improve with use. The tool is greatly enhanced with the Delta 34-779 mitre gauge, available separately. No mitre gauge was included. All in all, it's a good tool but obviously a tool made in China to meet a price target.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
