SuperMax 19-38 Drum Sander

[David Breeze]

Unsolicited testimonial for anyone looking for a thickness sander:

A well-engineered and well-made tool is a beautiful thing.  SuperMax drum sanders definitely fall into that category.  I stopped into the local Klingspor woodworkers shop a couple of weeks ago, planning to check out the Jet/Performax drum sanders.  They had a Performax 16-32 sander on display, and back to back with it was a SuperMax 19-38.  It made the Performax look cheap.  I wasn't planning on buying anything, just looking, and SuperMax was completely off my radar.  But it was so nice!  Enough width to sand any normal guitar top or back in one pass, no plastic, nice castings, obviously meticulous attention to design and manufacture.  And only a couple hundred dollars more.  After 10 minutes of looking I bought one.  So far it has lived up to the initial impression.  Right out of the box with no adjustments it has thicknessed a spruce top to a uniform 0.135", surfaced a big piece of roughsawn 8/4 walnut and put perfectly flat uniform surfaces on a variety of pieces in between these extremes.  If you are in the market for a thickness sander and can possibly afford $1400, please check this one out.