The traditional drum sander is designed to sand various lengths and widths of wood. You set the height, put the wood on a sandpaper like belt and send it thru. Then pick the wood up from the back, crank the height down a bit and send it thru again until the workpiece is fully sanded. It operates like a plainer but doesn't take as much wood off per pass. But for smaller lengths of workpiece I'd be interested to know if anyone feels that a machine that cycles the wood automatically would be preferred over the classical approach above? For those of you who have the typical drum sander, or are thinking of getting one, is there anything you don't like about the way the machine operates?