JET 10-Inch Benchtop Drum Sander, 1 HP, 115V 1Ph (Model JWDS-1020)

Excellent tabletop drum sander. Works as expected. Such a small footprint fits on the rolling cabinet with my tabletop jointer. Great to have 20 inches of sanding capacity by just flipping the piece around. Perfect for my small shop. Update: had trouble with an adjustment and after taking it in for repair, the company is replacing the machine. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE! Got them on the phone quickly and responded with great service. Will continue to buy jet products. I wish all companies customer service was this good.

I have 1/2 of a two car garage for my wood shop, the other half has a collectable car under a car cover. My space is extremely limited for all the power tools that I use. I make small boxes not cabinets, and I have gone to a friend's in the past to sand resawn boards from my bandsaw. He has a larger drum sander and quickly spoiled me with what his sander could do. It's a hassle to go over there for a small job so I purchased the JWDS-1020 drum sander for these reasons: It needed to be small, it needed to sand short boards and it needed to sand thin boards. That's exactly what this drum sander does best. It will sand a board less than 3 inches long and it will sand a board down to veneer thickness, and it fits on my flip-top cart taking very little space. The dust collection works very well, it's a smooth running, quiet (for a power tool) and does a great job, build quality is excellent. It will also sand a board up to 20 inches wide by running the opposite side through the open end on a second pass. It does everything that my friend's larger sander does just as well as his, except it doesn't sand a 36 inch wide board that is 4 inches thick. But his doesn't sand short boards or as thin as this machine. They have different applications is all. If you don't need a big boy drum sander for cabinets or status or if you don't have room, don't hessitate to purchase this machine. The only part of the learning curve that I am getting used to is that it's a sander not a planner. Take small amounts of material off, don't turn the crank a quarter turn at a time like you do with a planner. If you do it will pop the circut breaker. That's not a defect, that's operator error. I love this machine!

It’s a solid and hefty (73 pound) unit. Packaging could be better. Like others, the motor wouldn’t run at first because the fan had been squashed during shipping. Removed 3 screws, pulled off the end cover, un-squashed the fan blades and replaced cover and screws. Works fine now. I included a 3 minute video to demo it’s use. Quiet, accurate, simple to use. Note: I bought both the recommended reducer and flip top table. Returned reducer and used a rubber reducer for 1/4 the cost. Update: I’ve been wondering why my wood joints never seem straight. Regardless of how I cut, or what tool, there were always gaps. Turns out it wasn’t my cuts, it was the cupping in the wood. By using this sander after my planner, suddenly everything is tight and closed - no gaps - even on butt joints. Definitely one of my pricier tools, and not one I thought I needed THAT much. But it’s taken my hobby to the next level. If it weren’t for the shipping damage to the fan (which Jet packing and shipping needs to address) I’d absolutely rate it the full five stars.

If you order this sander, be aware that your first steps after unpacking it are not in the instruction manual. You guessed it, straightening a bent fan and pounding out a dented fan cover. Don't think that it won't happen to the one you order because that is what I thought and I was wrong. It is a shame that with the weight of this machine the packaging is not beefed up a little better especially after all of the complaints about it. I am updating my review from 3 to 5 stars. I work with small light pieces of wood so after running 30 or so pieces through the sander I can say that this machine will be a nice addition to my shop. It sure is a shame the packaging is not up to snuff but as long as the machine keeps working as it should then I will be happy. So on to the brighter side of things. I ran a small piece of wood through the sander a few times and it seemed to do what it is supposed to so that makes me feel better after spending that much money on it. I will give an update after I have had time to put more boards through it.

My wife gave this to me as a Christmas present. It was delivered by Amazon and the box was fine. The product was packaged well and I mounted it to a portable table. My first project with it was to sand some hard wood pieces that are about 2” wide and 12” long. I’ve never had a trim sander but I knew from using my surface planer that you need to go slow and take your time. I started with 1/64” increments and it bogged the conveyer belt, so I backed up to smaller increments. It worked well for a few passes, then I had a board come through with depressions in it. I look at the sand paper. It was still clipped in but had an overlap where the paper fat just a little loose. I tried to tighten the paper back up. That’s when I realized how cheap the paper holder was. I’m not real confident that the simple clips they use are ever going to hold up for future projects. I had a little problem with the conveyor belt not tracking properly, but I adjusted it and thought it would be ok, but after reading some other reviews I have my doubts. I love the concept of the drum sander and have wanted one for some time. Maybe the bigger versions are better products, but there’s no way I recommend this product to other woodworkers. I’ve boxed it up to be picked up be Amazon.

This little guy is just perfect for my small workshop. I sold my big drum sander that was always in the way and replaced it with this one. The motor overload kicks in if trying to take too much off at one pass - as it should. The dust collection is good. No issue with belt tracking straight out of the box.

This is an excellent machine for a small shop. I considered the next model up, but really don't need more than this size and it doesn't take up much space. I also didn't have room in my panel for another 220v circuit, so having a 110v machine with a reasonable amp draw was ideal for me. Right out of the box, the parallelism of the sanding drum to the conveyor was great: .002" across almost the whole 10" width, better than I'd be able to dial it in without a lot of effort and certainly good enough for woodworking. The first workpieces I put through it after initial testing were a set of bloodwood guitar sides that were roughly resawn and they came out great just using the 80 grit paper that was pre-installed. Sanded down to .086" with no issue. Overall I am very pleased with the value of this unit for the price paid. I did have two issues with quality control that were both easily fixed: 1) I'd seen some complaints in reviews of the motor fan rubbing on the shroud, and that was the case for me. Didn't appear to be due to shipping/handling, as the screws were very tight, but was easily remedied. Just be sure to check this before starting up the sanding drum and you'll be fine. 2) this is a MUCH more serious issue. The first session of usage went great, but the next day the sanding drum shut off mid-cut. The breaker wasn't tripped, and the only thing not working was the sanding drum. After some troubleshooting I discovered that one of the leads in the motor junction box was not properly connected (see photo) and had started to melt the wire insulation. Ultimately, the problem was that the wire was not actually inserted into the wire nut and was only barely making contact. Re-stripping the wire and CORRECTLY attaching a wire nut fixed the issue. This is a mistake that is unacceptable even for a rookie machine assembler. I work in industrial maintenance, this is something that I would absolutely discipline someone over. In the end, I would certainly recommend this product, BUT (just my 2 cents here) that second issue that I encountered has certainly soured the reputation of this brand in my eyes. Something like that should never make its way to the end user, regardless of how simple the fix is.

I’ve read and seen many negative reviews on this machine, both here and on YT. I really hesitated to buy this thing but it was the only drum sander that checked the boxes in my list. Size and weight were most important to me as I have to get my equipment down a flight of stairs to my basement shop. It came well packaged and was damage-free. No smashed motor fan cover which many have complained about. It was pretty much ready to go out of the box. I placed it on my bench and connected my dust collector. I switched on the conveyor then the drum and ran a few test boards through. The sander performed very well. It’s really quiet and dust collection is very good. So far after two weeks of ownership I have run through about 150 linear feet of wood through it. It has performed perfectly. The boards come out clean and with no snipe (after slight roller adjustment). The boards also come out with a uniform thickness. So far I’m very pleased with this drum sander. Maybe I got lucky and received a good one. YMMV.