Belt sanders - will cheap and cheerful do what I want?

I have a couple of doors on my boat and sundry other bits of woodwork that need the flaking varnish removed before starting again.

I have detail sanders and an 'orbital' sander (doesn't go round and round, it vibrates orbitally I think) but they don't really remove stuff quick enough.

So, I'm thinking of getting a belt sander, anything from £30'ish up to silly money (to my mind) for the 'posh' names.

This cheap one from Screwfix seems to do the job according to reviews there:-

formatting link

Will I miss much by not spending ten times a much?

Reply to
Chris Green
Loading thread data ...

A belt sander isn't really a good tool for flaking varnish on doors. If you need to remove the varnish completely it needs to be stripped with chemicals or heat and scraping. If you are going to varnish on top of the old finish it needs only light sanding.

A belt sander will maybe melt the varnish and make a mess, maybe sand too deeply into the wood, maybe the belts will clog. Even if you find you can delicately remove the finish from the flat areas you will never get into the corners and crevices in the same way.

TW

Reply to
TimW

A belt sander is a great way of ruining timber. A random orbit sander with a coarse 40 grit disc will quickly strip varnish & also give a smooth finish with a finer 80/120 grit.

formatting link

Reply to
David Lang

The first belt sander I bought was a budget affair (NuTool) and with hindsight it was pretty poor and soon became unusable. It was large, loud, the belt speed was quite slow, dust collection poor, and the real killer was the belt tracking. Like most it had a knob to adjust the tracking, but the chassis of the machine was made of plastic, and that could not maintain the alignment of the belt well enough. So as you changed sanding pressure it caused the belt to track one way or another. Over time the tension on the belt also deformed the chassis until it was no longer possible to actually track the belt at all.

(not saying the above will be like that - but just an illustration of what a poor one can be like)

I replaced it with a s/h Makita from ebay (paid about £60), and that has been a radical improvement - small, quiet (ish), fast, and rock solid tracking. The dust collection is very very good (it captures pretty much all of it).

A 3" belt sander is probably a better bet than a 4" wide one IMLE unless you are doing larger areas.

Belt sanders seem to get a bad press due to their ability to gouge wood if not used with care, however I would say that the reputation is a little undeserved - and no reason to avoid using one. Although have a bit of a practice on something not important first if you have not used one before!

Used with care they can give a very good finish. They can remove stock fast or slow depending on belt. The key to success IME is to keep it moving, and keep it flat on the work. Don't apply much force - just slight pressure in addition to the weight of the machine. Sand mostly along the grain - but you can rotate it off the axis a little to increase stock removal rate. So long as you don't leave it sat in one place it won't burn or gouge.

Align yourself with the grain. The power on the sander and lower it onto the work. Keep it moving in a nice flowing motion - perhaps 6" per second travel rate. Sand up toward the end (don't let it tip over the edge though) then start pulling it back toward you. shift over a bit to the side on each stroke. You may find for really aggressive sanding you can use a combination of up and down strokes, first with with it canted clockwise a bit (say 30 degrees), then again canted the other way, then again straight on, slowly working across the width each few strokes. Always work back and fourth in the same axis the belt is running in - never side to side as you might with other sanders.

I use mine frequently for fine furniture work. With an aggressive belt (40 or 60 belt) its great for tidying up panel glue ups - taking off squeeze out, and getting rid of any slight level mismatches. (it can actually be difficult to make much impression on the harder hard woods otherwise). For a belt sander 120 is about as fine as you need (the grits don't seem as aggressive as they sound on this type of machine) After that you can go to a random orbit or orbital for final finishing.

Both of these surfaces were done mostly with a belt sander:

formatting link
formatting link

That's the sander:

formatting link

Reply to
John Rumm
[snip long and very useful post]

Thanks John, that's given me lots to think about.

Reply to
Chris Green

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.