Homemade edge sander

Dave Black

Member
Messages
638
Location
Central PA
Larry PMed me about how I made my 80" edge belt sander so I'm going to start a thread about how I made it.

larry merlau said:
hey dave you got any pics or plans on how you made your edge sander?? if so would like to see it or them.. thanks

Here are some pics. I actually made 2 of them, 1 for me and 1 for my father in law. I made both of them out of stuff I had around so they were free except for the sanding belts. I used a 1hp 1725 RPM motor and used a v belt pulley to attach a 4" drum to. I put the pulley at the end of the shaft and screwed through the pulley into the drum. The drum is 2 3" schedule 80 PVC couplers glued together and there are wood plugs in each end. I suppose that you could use a solid wood drum. On the top of the drum I made a recess in the drum to hold a bearing. There is an arm that has a short shaft on that fits into the bearing to support the top of the drum. It is important to have this or the drum will flex when sanding and the belt will shoot up and off the machine. I know this now after hours of wondering why the belt tracked when running, then shooting off the second I sanded anything. So thats the power end. For the sanding "backing plate" I used a piece of large C channel for one of the sanders and the other I used a piece of steel plate and welded angle iron on the back of the plate for stiffness. For the free spinning drum I used a roller from a section roller track that I got from a junk yard. You could use a short piece of steel tube with bearings that slip in each end and a long bolt as an axle. One end of the roller has a tracking adjustment. Its simple, just a nut welded on the axle and a bolt that threads into it. By turning the bolt the axle moves in a slot and tracks the belt. There is a quick release mechanism to change the belts. Its not too complicated. The free spinning drum is mounted on a bracket and part of that bracket slides into tubing on the backing plate. There is a cam mechanism and a spring that operate it. The spring will hold the drum "out" and tension the belt. To take the belt off just move the cam lever and it pulls the drum in and takes the tension off the belt. There is a slot so the cam lever will catch in to hold the lever while the belt is being changed. That is the bulk of the mechanics. I know they aren't pretty but for free you can't beat them. Let me know if you have specific questions about how things work.
 

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That's some seriously cool handiwork there. Betcha have a lifetime warranty on it, and you probably live pretty close to the nearest repair depot... :thumb:
 
I'm waiting for the tutorial to see if that answers any questions I might have. Looks great:thumb:. :lurk:

I don't have any pics of the build, I made these a few years ago before I started keeping track of things with pictures. Basically I built it like I said in my first post. I started with the backing plate for the sanding belt and built everything off of that. Get a sanding belt before you start so you know how long to make the backing plate. I prefer using a steel plate and welding angle iron on the back of it to stiffen it. This effectively creates a large piece of C channel. I attached that to a large piece of steel square tubing. The motor mount is welded on to the large tubing, You could probably just make a motor mount that would weld right onto the backing plate. The drive drum should be somewhere in the 4" diameter. As I said in the first post my drum is made out of 3" PVC couplers. The outside diameter is around 4" I cut a short piece of 3" pipe and glued the 2 couplers together so that there is no gap between them. I made wood plugs that fit in the ends of the couplers. TO mount the drum to the motor I just drilled some holes in a V belt pulley and drove screws through the holes into the wood plug. When I made the plugs on the lathe I turned most of the plug to a diameter that fit snuggly into the coupler. I left a larger diameter shoulder on it that was the same diameter as the V belt pulley. By doing this all I had to do when it was time to mount the drum was to glue the plug in the coupler with PVC glue and then line up the V belt pulley with the shoulder I left on and screw them together. This was easy since the pulley and the shoulder are the same diameter. I turned a recess into the top plug so a small bearing would fit in. Its just a cheap bearing, something like this http://www.lowes.com/pd_152267-37672-881743_0_?productId=3014090&Ntt=bearings&Ntk=i_products&pl=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntk=i_products$rpp=30$No=30$Ntt=bearings$identifier=

When mounting the motor make sure that the drum sits flush with backing plate. The free spinning drum is more complicated. Pictures would be best to explain this so I'm going to stop here for tonight and take some pics tomorrow.
 
when you get done dave with your pics and tutorial. i would like to put this in the tutorial forum for our archives. this is something alot of folks could make and will be looking for in the future i think and that where the good ideas go:)
 
Tomorrow finally came. Here are some more pics. I think I covered explaining how everything went together so I think these pictures should explain the rest. I may have forgot to mention the tension spring that keeps tension on the free spinning drum to tension the belt. The spring keeps the tension on the belt, when its time to change belts the cam lever is used to take the tension off the belt. Its really a very simple design. In the first pic you can see masking tape on the front drum, that is to crown the drum so that the belt will track more easily. I used the sander for quite a while before I put the tape on it. I didn't need it till I got some more belts that must have been slightly longer and would not track well. I wrapped some tape around the drum with more in the middle to create a crown. After I did that there were no problems with belt tracking. The second pic is a closeup of the tracking adjuster, I think its pretty self explanatory. If more pics are needed let me know.
 

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