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New to me 6" X 48" belt sander/ 9" disc sander

John Conroy

John Conroy

member
Premium Member
I've been looking to buy decent belt sander for a while now and found this really nicely kept USA made vintage Craftsman on Kijiji. It works extremely well. The rest is very robust and can be installed on either the belt or disc positions. All the parts are cast iron and it's very heavy. I almost bought a new one of the same design from KMS but it was all sheet metal construction and much lighter.

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John, I'm sure you already know this, but if possible splurge on the blue (Zirconia) disks and belts. I had a sander like yours (but not as nice) for years and years. It was from Crappy Tire, didn't have the belt, and was intended for wood. Even the manual said it was intended for wood. But it was GREAT on metal, I only had to fab a replacement dust exhaust to replace the plastic one that came on it. About 4 or 5 years ago I needed something bigger so I bought a Kalamzoo 20". But it tapped me out so much I cheaped out when ordering consumables and I only bought the AL oxide (brown) ones. Because it is a 20" sander the disks are harder to find and I ended up ordering from an outfit down east that only sold in 10 packs. The adhesive on it is a bear to remove and I hate this job. I wish I could have found individual blue ones. Now you can buy them on Amazon thankfully. KMS has a good selection of individual ones, but I can't recall if they have any blue ones.

I also have an Ellis belt sander that's about twenty years old. When I bought it from the US I ordered 20 extra belts for it. They were all the blue ones. Fast forward to now I still have most of those unused blue belts because they are so good and I rarely need to change one.

The blue ones last so much longer on metal and are worth the money if you don't have to buy in huge quantities. Cleaning them helps; Busy Bee sells those giant eraser sticks.

Enjoy your new tool. Good for you.
 
I have a 4" hardware model that has pretty well become the most used machine in my shop even tho I have 3 or 4 bench grinders with different grit wheels on them. Pretty much everything that comes out of the lathe or mill gets a trip to the sander for burr removal.

I can buy 400 or 800 grit belts from any big-box hardware store but a buddy of mine from Calgary ( he accessed them locally but I don't know the store name) gave me a few 1100 grit belts...man can you ever put an edge on knives or HSS cutting tools with one of those.

You will like your new machine in very short order I predict.
 
Is there a big difference in horizontal versus vertical?

Any of the ones on TV shows are vertical, like the one you bought.

Yet most I see for sale the belt is horizontal
 
Most of them can work either way. This one is very versatile because you can switch the rest from disc to belt positions. The belt can set at any angle between horizontal and vertical by loosening 2 hex head bolts.
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I wondered if that was the case. I’ll have to look closer at some of the Kijiji ones to see if they’ll do both horizontal and vertical
Thanks!
 
When I used to work at Akhurst machinery, we sold a graphite backing pad (by the foot) (https://shop.akhurst.com/usa/pro6-hd-g.html) that would make a world of difference on your belt sander. At the time, I only had my 4x36, so of course bought some and installed it.

Fast forward a few years, I'm no longer there, but now have my 6x48. Trying to find a source for it again. Only found one so far, but the ~$15 pad had an ~$18 shipping charge! Yeah, no.

If there was enough of us that needed the 6" wide stuff, I'd be willing to go buy it in bulk and chop it up.
Thoughts? I'll start another thread if this takes off.
 
CalgaryPT said:
Just noticed your HS720 in the background John! Good taste !

I've got a HSS724ACTD, HS520 and HS720CC. I do 26 properties as a snow angel. Are you on snowblowerforum.com ??
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Great little snowblower for sure. I had no idea there was a forum, I'll check it out.
 
That's the same one i was looking at at KMS Tom. The motors on these sanders live a hard life, mine has a non-original motor.
 
CalgaryPT has suggested getting a new starter capacitor for it as the one it had passed all tests BUT these were not under load tests. So I am waiting to give it another try.

Windings were disconnected when a little in motor one time heat safety burned out - so I am hoping that the motor is fine & it just overheated when the start capacitor failed & resultant heat killed the little protection device.

If I cannot get it to work my solution will be to cut a slot in the bottom of the motor and put a pulley on her with another motor in the bottom of the stand. In that case I get a 3600 rpm motor and have SFM for belt sander that are suitable for steel and replace the wheel part with a buffer.

I rather have the original and not have to rebuild the whole thing. If it is just the capacitor I got a great deal, if its dead then not so great.

I cannot just ditch the old motor & get a new one since the old motor frame is made especially to support the belt sander - sort of the same style that grinders have with motor in the middle. Well I guess I could do a lot of metal work to make it work... but that seems like a total time pit.
 
Tom Kitta said:
CalgaryPT has suggested getting a new starter capacitor for it as the one it had passed all tests BUT these were not under load tests. So I am waiting to give it another try.
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Click to expand...

Most start or run caps will fail only under load. I'll assume yours has only one (start) cap?

Bypass that thermal fuse (temporarily). Take off the sander belt. Put a drill or something on the shaft, and get it up over ~500rpm and hit the power. It should then happily run as normal. Replace fuse, replace cap. Done.
 
I try it with the drill - I already hot wired thermal fuse. The motor has two capacitors - one for start and one for run.
 
@Dr.Fiero is correct, that's the test to do, but it can sometimes be awkward depending on setup. Capacitors can pass a simple DVM test, which is the second test you should do on them (the first is the visual examination as some show signs of failure). But the common DVM test is not under load. Damage to a cap is often proportional to its ability to hold a charge. (But all cap eventually fail, either gracefully or catastrophically). They make expensive testers (like car battery load testers) for capacitors; but unless you can match the test environment to your particular motor they aren't perfect either. @Dr.Fiero 's suggestion, if you can do it, is a good one.

Contrary to popular belief its job isn't to store a charge and use it to "boost" power to start the motor. Single phase motors don't produce differential flux in their windings to start the motor like three phase ones do. The capacitor does this in the starter winding and kinda trick the motor into starting. When it fails, that means it leaks faster, so fast the flux isn't generated sufficiently to offset the primary winding, thus there is no counteractive magnetic field to start the motor spinning. Without a load the cap may pass the simple DVM test, meaning it DOES hold a charge, but that won't say if it has ENOUGH of a charge to get it started.

BTW what is the HP of the motor? I'll have to check but I used to have a brand new one around somewhere. Is yours belt driven from underneath?
 
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