Homemade belt sander / linisher

[graduate_owner]

I'm really glad someons has made one of these Sorby clones, it shows it is possible. I have been put off by the price too and I was looking into modifying a stationary belt sander.

K

 

[curtisrider]

I've been building something similar but based on a knife grinder (longer belts don't get as hot and are less likely to snap apparently). Where your belt sits against the back rest/support, will that not cause wear/friction being so proud of the pulleys?

 

[DennisCA]

I've adjusted it since but it wasn't much of a problem like it was, I sanded and polished the backing piece to reduce friction

 

[curtisrider]

Sorry, it wasn't meant as a criticism just trying to figure out what mine should be like when I complete it!

 

[AES]

Very nice job Dennis CA.

Re the rear belt support making a problem against the back of the belt, I modified my own small belt sander when I first got it by lightly filing any burrs, etc, off it, then lightly sanding it all off with fine wet n dry. I then used an old belt lightly impregnated with metal polish and ran it free of work for a couple of minutes. The result is that the face against the back of the belt is now nicely smooth and polished there's very little friction, so I don't have any trouble with belts getting attacked by any irregularities on the face against the belt.

Re a previous post by someone else, I also like the idea of 2 pulleys, one with a coarse grit belt, one with a fine. It looks quite easy to do on your machine too.

AES

 

[DennisCA]

Thanks, I've actually been thinking if I should add another pulley to stop down the speed even further and add a home made wet grinding wheel setup instead. But I am not convinced I need such a setup. 120 grit and then to a strop (paul sellers style) seems to do the job, at least for chisels.

What I need to do is cut down the size of the table. It's too big for most bevel edge chisels, there's not enough flat for them to rest squarely on this table. Though some kind of square holding jig that rises above the table, creating it's own mini table could work too, without reducing my work surface.