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Best oscillating spindle sander

Mebfab

Diamond
Joined
Jun 7, 2003
Location
Mebane North Carolina USA
I need to profile a LOT of 3" tall oak. What is the best oscillating spindle sander on the market?

Saw a Kindt Collins and it looks pretty nice. But no tooling and I suspect i would spend the rest of my life looking for it.

State, same situation all the used ones are missing parts but read that some models take the same as a new grizzly.

I could just buy a grizzly or jet. But really prefer the old american.

Any thoughts?
 
I have a very nice State oscillating spindle sander that I haven’t been using. Older heavy American iron. Works great, 208V three phase and well tooled. If I recall correctly I have 8 spindles and 3 table inserts. $800. Located in Waukesha Wisconsin. If interested I’ll get photos.


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I bought the Grizzly G1071 oscillating sander about 6 years ago and it has more than met my expectations. This is their large sander.
 
If you don't need to get inside a very small ID, I would suggest an edge sander. If you haven't seen one, it is a belt sander set horizontally and all I have seen have a smaller diameter idler on one end that works great for similar tasks as a spindle sander. You can get these in small to huge sizes and oscillating as well. Depending on your market etc, you can find them for the same or less than a tooled up Max or State.

Big benefit for me is it is a belt vs a small drum so material removal is much faster and abrasive lasts longer etc.
 
Dan - Kindt Collins sounds nice, but it really will be a good idea to identify a spindle source before committing. OEM sets cost thousand$ when still available new.

No real help for your project - i reported on here a couple decades ago about acquiring a junk States. When it became clear a new spindle and gears were required to make it functional, and after a few calls to price States spindles, i opted to machine the new spindle to accept Grizzly taper. Not the best solution, but more than adequate. *Most* of the Grizzly spindles were straight, concentric. The larger 3" & 4" rubber drums needed a bit of touch up but really quite adequate. Of course looking back 15 - 20 years, who knows how things are today.

Also, on original States, & I think K-C, the threaded parts (draw rods) are separate rods going down through the spindle. Grizzly design has a short taper, and then an integral threaded portion on the end. If your machine is designed to run CCW looking at the end of the spindle, they are fine. If the machine should be run or you prefer to run it CW looking down on the end, sometimes the spindle can wobble loose. I have always wondered how early States and others retained the heavier spindles with only a drop in MT & no threaded retention, but apparently that worked ok until improved versions came out. Grizzly taper is about 1/2 the length of a MT2 but presumably in their own machines the rotation is correct for the threaded portion.

I actually run my states either direction, it just takes a bit more pull on opposing wrenches to secure Grizzly spindles when spiniing the "wrong" way, and some awareness when doing that with the larger dia sleeves.

smt
 
My Max sander looks exactly the same as the one above except the spindle taper is much shorter. It's a good sander. I also have a wadkin combination disk spindle sander. The spindles are different than most in that the spindle sleeves are not rubber they are a split expanding aluminum mandrel. I and the previous shop that used this sander only used the largest size sleeve on this sander. It's a little heavier duty than most bobbins i have used runs a little faster The height of the of the spindle can be adjusted so you can use more of the sleeve as it gets dull. The extra speed and a 5 inch spindle means it's much faster at removing material than any other I have used.

All that said a Zimmerman profile sander is much faster than everything but the big spindle on the wadkin and can sand into square corners. Or can you cnc the rads?? 99% of what we used to sand with the spindle sander we now cnc.
 
Not uber cheap but very versatile, I use a 2" x 72" KMG style "knife makers grinder" Belts are cheap, easy to come by and they split down to 1" x 72" in a twinkling. Going from vertical to Horizontal mode. slack belt to platen or contact wheel is quick.

Looking back on when I had a spindle sander the biggest detraction was the short lived sleeves.

Just my $0.02
 








 
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