Looking for opinions on Grizzly G0449 drum sander

[Wayne G.]

This week I had to search out someone to sand a large top for me. I located a guy locally that has the Grizzly 43" belt sander and I have been in AWWWW ever since.  He sanded a top 24 wide x 62 long to near finish in 15 minutes and tells me its his shop work horse.  I currently have the Jet 16-32 and its nowhere close to his belt sander and now I want one. The problem is that all belt sanders are 3 phase in the width I would like but I did find the Grizzly G0449 drum sander.  Looking for someone that has this unit to tell me there experience with it and how much different is it vs my Jet oopen end 16-32.  I have a very hard time doing anything that's more than 3 feet long in my 16-32 as well.  Thoughts on the Grizzly G0449 please.  Is worth trading up from my Jet? 

Thanks,

Wayne

[Admiral]

Wayne: can't help you, but at the risk of confusing this thread, I've thinking of getting one for some time now, principally for sanding veneers after I resaw. Is there any advantage to going larger than 16", or even 12, or am I going to get frustrated once i see what it can do and start sanding larger glued up tops. Also interested in what brand I should choose, based on your experience.

[Wayne G.]

Wayne:  can't help you, but at the risk of confusing this thread, I've thinking of getting one for some time now, principally for sanding veneers after I resaw.  Is there any advantage to going larger than 16", or even 12, or am I going to get frustrated once i see what it can do and start sanding larger glued up tops.  Also interested in what brand I should choose, based on your experience.

I purchased the Jet 16/32 a few years back so that I could do panels larger than my planer which is 15".  To be honest it was a hassle flipping the piece because if its not 100% parallel it will groove in the center.  Between that and the inconvenience of changing the paper made it that I didn't use it as much as planned.  When I did use it, it seemed like a 30 minute job for simple panels.  For thin stuff it cant be beat.  It has its place in the right shop.  I would also add that anything over 36" is difficult to feed and catch while keeping equal pressure on the roller.

[Wayne G.]

I decided against the Grizzly and opted to get the Jet 22/44 Oscillating unit with mobile base