The sander is well made and works very well. It takes two people to unpack, it's very heavy, my wife and I struggled with getting it on the work table. It was missing one part, but the 800# worked great,had the part in two days. The sander needs a sturdy table, I got one from Rockler with casters so I can move it out of the way when not in use. Dust pickup works well and speed control is nice. This one machine really dose give you three very versital machines. Gambier, Ohio

The machine came with absolutely no paper work of any
br /kind. Perhaps they have not translated it yet from
br /the Chinese language. There is no instructions,
br /no assembly drawings etc.. NOTHING. The machine is heavy
br /cast iron which is nice, including the tables
br /It is the typical rough-Chinese castings with
br /paint job that looks good from a distance.
br /I have since discovered that the machine in other
br /paint scheme is also sold by Sears..so if you want one
br /you may be able to get it cheaper at a Sears
br /near you if you watch the sales flyers. Plus
br /it is pretty easy to return stuff to them.
br /The three different sanding devices are handy
br /as is the speed control... I would recommend that
br /you see it, up close and in use before you plunk down
br /your money.

After reading 2 reviews here and because of the price I purchased this 3 in 1 sander. As stated by another review it came with no paperwork but not to worry, i sent an email to Palmgren and the next day I received a reply with an attachment for the 28 page manual. The difference in price between what competitors sell this for and what it costs here makes it MORE than worth the hastle of emailing Palmgren for the manual. I am happy I bought it here! It is a good quality machine for the money.
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br /T. Mercer
br /Colorado

I don't usually write reviews but pretty much messed up on this purchase though that isn't entirely the machine's fault.
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br /On arrival (By truck since this thing is heavy!) the box looked fine, just the usual scuffs to be expected from a trip half way around the world. It wasn't until I opened it up and started lifting things out that I realized the box had, at some point, been dropped on it's face side. This sheared one of the two cap screws holding the spindle table in place which in turn slid back and bent the spindle shaft. Before going through the hassle of getting the machine or some of its bits replaced, I had a go at it myself. I extracted and replaced the sheared screw, easy, removed the shaft, easy, stripped all the gears and bearings off it, not too bad, and straightened it to within a 5 thou. run-out in a hastily made jig. The shaft seemed fairly soft and it didn't take all that much force to shift it around. I had taken a couple digital pictures of the assembled shaft before stripping it down so reassembling was simple. Getting it bolted back down in proper alignment (The mechanism to stop, spin, or spin and oscillate the spindle is a little complicated and picky about proper alignment.) took a little fiddling and trial and error but nothing to get too excited about. By the way, mine did come with paperwork
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br /Combination tools can be great space and money savers if they are well executed. If not they can be a source of frustration. In my book this sander falls in-between. All four functions, disk, spindle, oscillating spindle, and belt function adequately for light to moderate use. Adjusting the disk and belt tables is a bit clumsy and I recommend keeping a machinist and sliding T-square handy and taking your time. (Those little red, stamped steel arrows and small scales are never very useful, but they sure do turn up on a lot of tools. . .) In order to completely clear the spindle table to work on larger pieces it's necessary to tilt the belt to the horizontal position and set the belt's table to 45 degrees or remove it but that's what living with a combination machine is all about, except that reaching into a rather small and difficult to see space with a hex key in order to do this is a pain. In order to work on large items with the belt sander, well, sometimes the spindle table is just in the way. There's nothing much you can do about that except find a different way of approaching the belt which makes getting those long smooth strokes that produce the best surface difficult at times. As far as I can tell, the dust bag that comes with the machine is just for looks. It takes a shop vac or dust collector hooked up to the port to provide any sort of dust control. Did I mention that this thing is heavy?? It may be a bench-top sized tool, but it will be a permanent fixture on the corner of that bench because you won't be grabbing this thing and tucking it away on a shelf when not in use. I'm not sure why it has to be that heavy. Sanding should be done in light strokes, both to get the best finish and to get the most life out of your abrasives so even a fairly light machine would stay put without clamping it in place.
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br /I'm certainly not going to throw this sander aside now that I have bought it, but if I was doing it again I think I would buy a competitor's, much lighter, bench-top oscillating spindle sander (There's no real need for a fixed spindle that I can think of.) with a belt sander attachment that drops over the spindle and uses the same table for about the same money and make a modest additional investment for a sanding disk that fits the arbor of my table saw.
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I bought this unit as a replacement for a really cheap belt disc sander that went belly up. My unit arrived in perfect shape. Pretty well packaged in my opinion. It needs to be as this is one heavy unit. I managed to get this unit up on to the work table to assemble it by myself and then into it's resting place but you really should have 2 people if possible. After reading comments here about no manual I ordered one by email from Palmgren previous to receiving the unit. They responded immediately, however upon receipt of the machine it did come with all the necessary paper work, manual etc. It's still a good idea to get the online .pdf as the photos are a little sharper and you can blow it up. Assembly went well.
br /This is one solid unit with nice cast iron tables for all the applications. The disc sanding table is one of the few I have seen that actually hold in place and does not use the typical mount on a rod with set screws. The belt table is dead on 90 but is kind of a pain to move the belt to other that vertical positin as you have to remove the table first then adjust. The dust collection port is pretty nice to have but I did not hook up the bag as from past experience they don't work well, however with a shop vac it works great. I rate this machine 4 stars and hope after I work with it awhile to give it a 5 star rating.
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I looked into sanding centers and for the most part, the majority out there are disc and belt only. When I came across the Palmgren it was exactly what I was looking for.
br /I do some light woodworking now and then and this is the perfect addition to my shop. I have recently purchased some of the conversion spindles and am pleased with them as well. (my wife clued me in on the 38% off these items at Amazon last week)
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br /At $199 (which is the same price almost anywhere on the net) the free shipping from Amazon was the deal maker.
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br /I have also purchased a Dewalt portable planer stand (see my review) to mount it on as it is 130 pounds and I like the machines in my shop to be able to be moved around.
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br /The only thing I have a complaint about is the lack of quality in the angle marker stickers/plaques on the unit. The printing was rubbed off and they were stuck on with adhesive that didn't hold up to the film of shipping oil on the unit. As they were falling off, I removed them and replaced them with my own scales.
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br /All in all, I am very pleased with this product.
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