A few days ago, I was working on this farmhouse table flattening the underside of the top with my Porter Cable Restorer sander. I wrote a post about the sander a couple of years ago saying how nice of a tool it is to use. Granted, I don’t use the tool all that much as I don’t work with reclaimed wood too often, but it works well as a quick belt sander.

I was sanding the top down when I noticed some black streaks on the wood. I stopped and turned the tool over when I saw the sandpaper drum moved to the right eating into the housing flap.

I thought to myself that I must have the drum in backwards so I flipped the sandpaper drum around and kept going. Then I noticed the sandpaper was now eating into the body of the sander.

I thought to myself “what the hell??” I looked at the sander to see if there was any way to tighten the sandpaper to the drum as I do with my oscillating drum sander, but there was nothing to tighten.

I had no idea what I did wrong as I’ve used the tool in the past with no problems. I follow the guy who invented the Restorer on Instagram, Robert Kundel Jr, and sent him a picture of the tool and asked him what I did wrong. He wrote back to me apologizing that there was an issue with some of the sandpaper drums not being made to spec and he would send me a new unit. Sure enough a few days later, a new unit arrived at my doorstep.

These are drums that were not made to spec. I bought them on clearance at Lowe’s. They are now going into the garbage. Lowe’s is now starting to carry the Craftsman Restorer which is more likely the same as the Porter Cable as they are both owned by Stanley Black & Decker. I’ll buy the Craftsman sanding drums for now on.

You can see the difference between the two drums. The used one is about an 1/8″ wider in diameter causing it to move while being used.

I always read about great customer service from Lie-Nielsen and Lee Valley on woodworking forums. Robert at Inventor of the Restorer needs to be on the list as well. He went far and beyond what was appropriate. I would have been happy with just a new sleeve of correct drums as the sander still works.