KATSU Electric Drum Sander, 1250W 230V Variable Speed Burnisher Polisher Burnishing Drawing Machine 100093

I needed a grinder to remove oxidation, burnish and polish a few steel made stools. Using a drill with attachments was out of the question - tried it and it didn't give the results and productivity I needed.An angle driver with burnishing pads can be a good solution depending on the work pieces you have.This kind of tool is for high production work and it excells there. Not good for hard to get spots and not good for details. (You need an excavator to dig a large hole but shovels will be needed eventually).I was a bit concerned about what this specific tool would be like and how reliable it would be. Comparing it to the Bosch equivalent costing about 8x as much, left me wondering.It's heavy. At 4.8kg is heavier than the Bosch (at 3.4kg) but not much larger. Well, you get what you pay for. The supplied burnishing wheel is effective and behaves like a 40grit pad. It doesn't wear out quickly and delivers uniform results. Better than what you can achieve with wheels attached to an angle grinder, unless you have mastered you to use it.For the task I ordered this, it saved me about a few days of going through with burnishing wheels on the angle grinder. I still need the angle grinder for hard to get spots (I am doing stools, not flat surfaces) and I will also need the drill. But using the other tools for detailing is much easier and productive than having to wear them out doing the (few) large surfaces.The operating booklet is from a different machine but I didn't need that anyway. The unit was easy to assemble and nothing feels like put together clumsy and being prone to fail. The wheel guard is able to rotate (and then re-tightened before use) to allow changing the orientation of work. That helps a lot with reaching some of the hard to get points.No idea if it delivers the advertised power but at max revs it does go along well at high speed and torque is enough. Trick (as with every tool) is not to force it. When grinding from the top, with the work piece below, the weight of the tool plus some human force to keep it steady is all it takes for the action. Working from below requires an effort to handle the weight of the tool plus keep it steady and apply some force to the workpiece. Not the way to go. The size and weight of the tool requires frequent re-orienting of the workpiece or changing of posture. And I also made it a habbit to turn the dial down to 1 every time I stop so that upon power up, it starts smooth and then I can dial up to the required power level. I found that from the scale of 1-6, 1 is useless for work as it has too low torque and 4-5 are the comfortable levels that get the job done. For deep scratches, half a minute at level 6 helps speed things up.If you don't need the high productivity such a tool offers, you will be better off with a brand name angle grinder and discs. Look for a small size, light weight tool and pay the premium for that. But if you need to do heavy duty tasks, and can't afford the 8x costing Bosch GSI14CE, then this is a good alternative.And if you have worked with grinders and polishers before, you know that consumables will cost 2-3 times more than the tool itself.

the unit works just fine , a bit on the heavy side.Be aware that if plan to use it in environments that require or recommend an electrical grounded plug or socket, that this unit do have a plug that have ground but the cable used from the unit it self does not!

I have several Katsu tools and they have all been good and remarkable value for money, this drum sander is no exception, it is very powerful and well made, with a firm secure hadle and a robust protective guard.most of the work I have used it for so far, has been on its slowest speed, I may increase the speed later but it goes so fast on slow setting, I need to get a bit braver with it, the drum is huge but easy to control, with the controls in the perfect position.It is supplied with an abrasive polyproplene, sort of bonderd flap wheel, which buffs and scuffs really welI, I would suspect when I fit a sanding paper style drum on it, its performance will be awesome for sanding or stripping wood.

Brilliant

Just the weight, it functions well enough

Works well

It's better than expected, good product duse fantastic job on old wood 🪵 👏.

As with many power tools in this price range I'm usually a little cautious, wondering if it'll be up to the job, but for DIY occasional use this did an excellent job.Other reviews comment on the weight and it's not light weight, but for what it's doing I wouldn't expect it to be.The instructions aren't great with the print quality being poor.