It occurs to me that I could make a belt sander myself (I'm thinking a
6x48 stationary sander). I have motors (up to 1 hp), pulleys, belts,
lots of scrap steel, a welder, lots of wood, a metal lathe, ....).
Also, I just fixed my junky 4x36 sander, and it seems to be a simple
machine. What do I need to be especially concerned with? The rollers
have to be crowned, I imagine alignment is pretty fussy, and so on.
Has anybody done this? There is some guy who build a pretty small
sander (like a 2" belt) out of plywood and so on, and you can find
this on the web, but none of his stuff seemed particularly relevant to
a larger one. So, has anybody done this?
[email protected] wrote:
| It occurs to me that I could make a belt sander myself (I'm
| thinking a 6x48 stationary sander). I have motors (up to 1 hp),
| pulleys, belts, lots of scrap steel, a welder, lots of wood, a
| metal lathe, ....). Also, I just fixed my junky 4x36 sander, and it
| seems to be a simple machine. What do I need to be especially
| concerned with? The rollers have to be crowned, I imagine
| alignment is pretty fussy, and so on. Has anybody done this? There
| is some guy who build a pretty small sander (like a 2" belt) out of
| plywood and so on, and you can find this on the web, but none of
| his stuff seemed particularly relevant to a larger one. So, has
| anybody done this?
I'd guess that you'll want a platen heavy enough to not distort from
the generated heat, and I think I'd want to face it with a full-size
graphite pad. I understand that a bit of tape around the center of the
rollers can provide all the crown needed to ensure tracking.
I think I'd want a full-length fence similar to a jointer fence, so
that I could shift the position of the fence when the belt at the
current position wears, and so that I could sand beveled edges
accurately.
Seems like dust collection and a really solid base would be good
ideas. :-)
I've never built one and my only belt sander is a 1"x42" - if you
build one, please post photos to
news:alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
[email protected] wrote:
| It occurs to me that I could make a belt sander myself (I'm
| thinking a 6x48 stationary sander).
<snip>
SFWIW:
Built one from wood using a from a kit from by Gilliom.
Never got it working correctly. Scrapped it out.
Lew