16-06-2011, 06:25 PM
Hi,
Over the years I’ve bought and restored many machines and now have both a well equipped workshop and garage costing little money. This now enables me to make virtually anything I wish to make and I take great advantage of this in buying offcuts of timber and metal.
I derive immense satisfaction from making useful items from the offcuts and here is one such item it being a home made 4” belt sander costing nothing for materials; the only cost incurred was for ten sanding belts bought from eBay at around £10 for the ten.
Construction is mostly welded although a number of mechanical fastenings have been used where appropriate. All the steel is nothing more than lumps of box section and angle that I had kicking around in the garage. The bearings and bits of steel shafting were obtained from the scrap bins where I worked. The bearings; approximately a ton of them were discarded as being too noisy for their intended application but as they cost me nothing I brought a box full home.
Much of the cutting was done using a hacksaw followed by a file for fettling. I didn’t have a working drawing but made it up as I progressed; I have many drive belts in stock all salvaged by me and I chose one and made the motor drive arrangement to suit it; it is slightly too long and had it been shorter I could have made the overall footprint of the sander smaller.
I worked through each section solving the problems as they arose and there were plenty of problems. I didn’t have a suitable drive and idler drum for driving the belt so nothing for it but to make my own. I glued two thick sections of solid oak together and turned each to size using my engineering lathe as I was too lazy to assemble my woodturning lathe. The engineering lathe was also used to turn shafting and bearing housings.
The electric motor was kindly given to me by a friend it being a single phase 240V 4 pole running at 1425 rpm. The power of the motor is unknown but estimated at ½ hp. The motor and belt drive arrangement can be seen in the picture; the belt is a bit loose but drives OK without slipping.
The main column is nothing more than a length of angle iron cut to length; slides were added to the top end for belt adjustment and these slides are very basic being narrow pieces of steel secured by set screws. The slides were made to suit a length of thick black iron which was de-scaled by filing; this was made a snug sliding fit in the slides. The top drum arrangement gave me a few headaches as it not only had to adjust the belt length but also the belt tracking. A length of box section steel was added being allowed to pivot centrally without play on a thick bolt and a bit of box section was welded to one end of this and the bearing housing welded to this; the bearing housing retains two bearings.
The top block of oak for the top drum was bored axially and the new shaft driven home; this allowed the shaft to be gripped in the lathe chuck and the oak block turned into a drum with a very slightly rounded profile (crown) across its width to aid belt tracking; by turning the drum like this it ensured concentricity around the shaft axis. A length of square section steel was welded to the top of the sliding piece and drilled and tapped to accept a pair of screw adjusters. The top drum could now be adjusted for belt length and pivot for tracking but I wanted belt changing and adjustment to be as easy as possible so once again gave the matter a great deal of thought. My solution was to make a lever with a cam at the end the cam arranged to lift and lower the drum; the cam sounds difficult but really a simple cam such as this is very easy to make by simply boring a hole off centre in a round slice of bar stock. The more off centre the hole is bored the higher the cam lift. A spring was added to retain belt tension. To change the belt takes seconds.
The bottom bearing housing was a straightforward welding job the only care needed was to ensure alignment. The motor was already fitted with a pulley so I selected a drum drive pulley from stock; this was done earlier as I knew I needed to turn the shaft to fit the pulley.
With the main sections assembled the belt could be installed and this allowed measurements for the backing support. This support was cut from a section of very heavy channel iron and assembled very carefully to perfectly align with the belt. This support is very important as it prevents the belt distorting once thrust is placed upon the belt during sanding operations otherwise without the support the belt would give a pronounced curve to the work being sanded.
The work support is another length of heavy angle iron with a square of heavy metal welded in to the right hand end; this square being drilled to accept a bolt that is secured by welding and wing nut to allow the rest to pivot; in turn this was attached to a heavy rectangular section of steel the end being slotted to allow horizontal adjustment of the rest to the belt; a lot of care was taken to ensure the rest aligned perfectly.
I still need to add dust extraction and buy a selection of belts with different grits but this sander even fitted with a very aggressive 60 grit belt is a joy to use; it brought the comb joints of the wooden box down flush in rapid time making a beautiful job of them.
It is the ugliest machine I have in the garage but is one of the most used and I don’t begrudge the time and effort I put in making it; this sander will last a lifetime as the moving parts are easily replaceable. I enjoyed bringing these offcuts to life.
Kind regards, Col.
Over the years I’ve bought and restored many machines and now have both a well equipped workshop and garage costing little money. This now enables me to make virtually anything I wish to make and I take great advantage of this in buying offcuts of timber and metal.
I derive immense satisfaction from making useful items from the offcuts and here is one such item it being a home made 4” belt sander costing nothing for materials; the only cost incurred was for ten sanding belts bought from eBay at around £10 for the ten.
Construction is mostly welded although a number of mechanical fastenings have been used where appropriate. All the steel is nothing more than lumps of box section and angle that I had kicking around in the garage. The bearings and bits of steel shafting were obtained from the scrap bins where I worked. The bearings; approximately a ton of them were discarded as being too noisy for their intended application but as they cost me nothing I brought a box full home.
Much of the cutting was done using a hacksaw followed by a file for fettling. I didn’t have a working drawing but made it up as I progressed; I have many drive belts in stock all salvaged by me and I chose one and made the motor drive arrangement to suit it; it is slightly too long and had it been shorter I could have made the overall footprint of the sander smaller.
I worked through each section solving the problems as they arose and there were plenty of problems. I didn’t have a suitable drive and idler drum for driving the belt so nothing for it but to make my own. I glued two thick sections of solid oak together and turned each to size using my engineering lathe as I was too lazy to assemble my woodturning lathe. The engineering lathe was also used to turn shafting and bearing housings.
The electric motor was kindly given to me by a friend it being a single phase 240V 4 pole running at 1425 rpm. The power of the motor is unknown but estimated at ½ hp. The motor and belt drive arrangement can be seen in the picture; the belt is a bit loose but drives OK without slipping.
The main column is nothing more than a length of angle iron cut to length; slides were added to the top end for belt adjustment and these slides are very basic being narrow pieces of steel secured by set screws. The slides were made to suit a length of thick black iron which was de-scaled by filing; this was made a snug sliding fit in the slides. The top drum arrangement gave me a few headaches as it not only had to adjust the belt length but also the belt tracking. A length of box section steel was added being allowed to pivot centrally without play on a thick bolt and a bit of box section was welded to one end of this and the bearing housing welded to this; the bearing housing retains two bearings.
The top block of oak for the top drum was bored axially and the new shaft driven home; this allowed the shaft to be gripped in the lathe chuck and the oak block turned into a drum with a very slightly rounded profile (crown) across its width to aid belt tracking; by turning the drum like this it ensured concentricity around the shaft axis. A length of square section steel was welded to the top of the sliding piece and drilled and tapped to accept a pair of screw adjusters. The top drum could now be adjusted for belt length and pivot for tracking but I wanted belt changing and adjustment to be as easy as possible so once again gave the matter a great deal of thought. My solution was to make a lever with a cam at the end the cam arranged to lift and lower the drum; the cam sounds difficult but really a simple cam such as this is very easy to make by simply boring a hole off centre in a round slice of bar stock. The more off centre the hole is bored the higher the cam lift. A spring was added to retain belt tension. To change the belt takes seconds.
The bottom bearing housing was a straightforward welding job the only care needed was to ensure alignment. The motor was already fitted with a pulley so I selected a drum drive pulley from stock; this was done earlier as I knew I needed to turn the shaft to fit the pulley.
With the main sections assembled the belt could be installed and this allowed measurements for the backing support. This support was cut from a section of very heavy channel iron and assembled very carefully to perfectly align with the belt. This support is very important as it prevents the belt distorting once thrust is placed upon the belt during sanding operations otherwise without the support the belt would give a pronounced curve to the work being sanded.
The work support is another length of heavy angle iron with a square of heavy metal welded in to the right hand end; this square being drilled to accept a bolt that is secured by welding and wing nut to allow the rest to pivot; in turn this was attached to a heavy rectangular section of steel the end being slotted to allow horizontal adjustment of the rest to the belt; a lot of care was taken to ensure the rest aligned perfectly.
I still need to add dust extraction and buy a selection of belts with different grits but this sander even fitted with a very aggressive 60 grit belt is a joy to use; it brought the comb joints of the wooden box down flush in rapid time making a beautiful job of them.
It is the ugliest machine I have in the garage but is one of the most used and I don’t begrudge the time and effort I put in making it; this sander will last a lifetime as the moving parts are easily replaceable. I enjoyed bringing these offcuts to life.
Kind regards, Col.
