2x72 inch belt sander

[Radioman]

Hello I’m new here and am amazed by some of the tooling I’ve seen so far! Some very talented people on this site. I thought I’d share a tool that I made recently. This is my 2x72 inch belt sander. The only store bought parts on it are the motor, belt, on off switch and the bearings and axles. I made all the pullies out of 6061 aluminum on my Logan 10 inch lathe. 5° total bevel on each pulley. 2-1/2° on each side of center. This is enough to keep the belt tracking straight. The pulley on the very top is the tracking adjustment. A small turn of the screw is enough to get any belt tracking on center. The belt platten is extended slightly from the frame so you can sand past flush on both sides of the belt. The bed is nice and big for plenty of work support. The frame is made from 2x2x1/4 steel. Plenty strong enough. The motor is a 2hp Grizzly piece. Again plenty of power to spare.

I have some more photos but must have hit my limit as the uploader stoped me from adding more.

[DIYer]

Thanks Radioman! We've added your Belt Sander to our Sanding category,
as well as to your builder page: Radioman's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Belt Sander by Radioman

tags: belt sander

[aphilipmarcou]

Good stuff there Radioman... Belt grinders are dear to my heart because they can be so versatile. If you are working a variety of materials and using sevral different belt types then you would benefit from being able to vary the fpm speed which in your case would be easier done electronically rather then having stepped pulleys etc ie the motor is no longer direct drive. I would be interested in seeing any other pictures you can load up.

[ncollar]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.
Nelson

[Wannabe]

That is a very nice build indeed. Do you possibly have a set of plans you could share with the rest of us? I can get the steel very cheap nearby and I have a treadmill that I can take the motor off of to make a variable speed grinder. But I don't have the dimensions or plans for the frame pieces nor do I have any pulleys or lathe to make them. So I will have to purchase pulleys which seem to be the most expensive part of these builds. Thanks for sharing.

[ragsflh]

Hello I’m new here and am amazed by some of the tooling I’ve seen so far! Some very talented people on this site. I thought I’d share a tool that I made recently. This is my 2x72 inch belt sander. The only store bought parts on it are the motor, belt, on off switch and the bearings and axles. I made all the pullies out of 6061 aluminum on my Logan 10 inch lathe. 5° total bevel on each pulley. 2-1/2° on each side of center. This is enough to keep the belt tracking straight. The pulley on the very top is the tracking adjustment. A small turn of the screw is enough to get any belt tracking on center. The belt platten is extended slightly from the frame so you can sand past flush on both sides of the belt. The bed is nice and big for plenty of work support. The frame is made from 2x2x1/4 steel. Plenty strong enough. The motor is a 2hp Grizzly piece. Again plenty of power to spare.

I have some more photos but must have hit my limit as the uploader stoped me from adding more.

need a variable speed switch so you can slow it down on certain jobs.looks great