Here is my finished V-Drum Sander :-) The wood is a piece of butternut. It had some cupping and ugly chatter marks. It was a joy to see them disappear, and I ended up with a flat piece of material :-)
It takes a bit of use to gain a "feel" for using this machine. The first couple of passes made me wonder what was going on as the wood passed over the drum with almost no resistance. I looked at the material and saw that only the outside edges of the cupped board were being sanded - naturally! As the board became more flattened the resistance became greater. One also figures out quickly that the speed that one pushes the material across the drum should be uniform whether it is fast, slow or somewhere in between. This produces a lovely finished piece of wood :-) I did remove the cupping and the chatter marks. It took about 40 passes with 120 grit sanding mesh. I moved the material over the drum faster than I probably should have, but it's all about learning how to do it ;-)
I will seal the wood in the drum opening in the top tomorrow, so I guess that I'm not quite done, but close enough :-)