belt sander on youtube,put up pics of your diy belt sanders

[Maker]

My improvised internal belt grinder :


It's an MDF pulley on a wood lathe with the belt from a handheld sander torn into half inch (ish) strips. You pull the part to be sanded to tighten the belt. I made it to sand a friends scooter forks (the thing in the picture) but I use it quite a lot now for pipes, ect.

I've designed a real belt grinder but I can't make it until I get a lathe.

Sorry the picture's on its side, I got some weird security message when I uploaded the rotated version.

 

[whensparksfly]

what motor hp and speed do you need for steel and dose it need to have different speeds or is one speed ok?
Would the nylon wheel earlier in the post work for a metal belt sander or do they need to be steel?

thanks everyone the thread turn out to be great

 

[vbottles]

Here is a picture of my grinder build. HP useually is recommended as 1 HP per belt width. Mine is a bit over powered at 2kw for a 2" belt. Difficult to bog down but trips the vfd if pushing really hard. I would recommend direct drive with a vfd where possible as it allows infinite belt speeds. Just need to work out the size of you drive wheel.




For a place for ideas have a look at cnc cookbook.
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCKnifeMakingGrinders.htm
Andrew

 

[vbottles]

The wheels that you use will depend on how much you want to pay and how you want to grind.
The grooved rubber wheels are designed for grinding so it keeps the work cool by not having the work in constant contact. But these cost quite a bit. From memory the large 12" wheel was about £150.
If you use a flat platen then the wheel size or material doesn't matter. I have used skate board wheels at one stage. I have seen large wheels turned from wood which looked to work ok.
I don't think it matters what you use for the drive wheel. I used a large v groove wheel for the size (8") as I have a 4 pole motor 1400rpm. I also use the v-belt to drive a polishing mop set up as well. Just filled the grooves I didn't need with chemical metal the sanded it down on the motor till round.
Andrew

 

[whensparksfly]

mite be a stupid question but if you had a industrial wood working belt sander could it be made to work with steel

 

[brightspark]

mite be a stupid question but if you had a industrial wood working belt sander could it be made to work with steel

yes no probs . trouble is with large wide belts is if u get a dig in and tear them they come off at a great rate of knots in bits

 

[chester dylan]

not diy but i use this 8" white head wood working linisher with metal working belts and a vfd works fine only problem is an 8" belt costs twice what a 6" belt dose

hears my diy effot 12" disk sander only gets used for sharpening pencils and chawk