here's my belt grinder so far and before I go any further I have to decide how
I'm gonna mount the motor which depends on which motor I'm gonna use. Originally
I had been thinking of using this motor which is almost brand new and just sort
of making like a shaft with two universal joints to connect that to get
that out of the way of the dust but it's such a nice motor and the shaft on here
is way too long and I just don't wanna cut that off so I was going to use this
motor which is a 2/3 horsepower motor but it turns out this one spins this way
which would make the sander run backwards and it's not reversible
so then I thought maybe this motor which is out of my washer but that motor also
spins this way so then I was thinking I just just put a pulley on here put the
motor behind the sander and another pulley on here or something like this
and then it spins the right way and the motors out of the way and I could even
vary the speed but a cool thing about this motor is it's actually a two-speed
motor it can run 1750 and 1150 RPM so I can already vary the speed just with it
directly so I think what I'll do now is I'll just flip this around I'll put the
motor on this side and move the mount from this side to this side now I need
to make some kind of a base so I can melt this motors of these shafts line up
and then need to make some kind of a yoke that goes from this shaft and turns
this wheel with a little bit of flexibility and it also needs to be easy
to remove so I can change the sanding belt I got a Mount mate for the motor on
the front I just use the studs that stick under the motor in the corners and
on the back there's some holes in the corner I just threaded those and I
screwed some machine screws into those that sits on the base like that which
will slide in some rails back and forth to disengage it from the wheel and a
couple to the wheel I've got this yoke here and in the ends of it there's going
to be these rubber bushings which are actually what
motor was originally mounted on and those will engage some slots in the
wheel now I just need to figure out how to mount this on here so it locks the
shaft so I just ground a bit more of a key way into here and I use the jigsaw I
put a keyway on here and that fits on there nice and tight and now a wood
screw into that space to lock it in place and the nice thing about using a
screw as a key is it's easy to take it out again
I'm a bit nervous about spinning this up but here it goes whoa I unplugged some
of these wires on here when I put this mounting block on there and I guess I
put them in the wrong spot okay first start take - a lot of
vibration here so this is the 1200 rpm speed it is shaking a fair bit
okay now 1750 rpm and now with a belt low speed
and now high-speed right I just did a bunch of work on here without filming it
mostly making these two rails that the motor base slides on which allows me to
slide it back and disengage it so I can get the sandpaper out I also clean up
the top a little bit I cut this round there's a screw with a big hole behind
it to hold the tracking adjust and a nice knob for pulling the shaft in a
note a challenge with the sander is the flexibility of it right now I got a 42
inch belt on there it'll also take a 72 inch belt once I get one and I need to
figure out how to mount the table which ideally would tilt and I need something
to support the platen that goes behind here and I'd also like to have dust
collection so that's a lot to think about so in the meantime I'm going to
add the electrical switch to it now I think I'll put that here
so I cut a big hole in here so I can fit this box snug on the back of the motor
like this I already made a mounting flange for
here I'll need some other way to attach the bottom to here I used some of the
rest of the stuff I cut out of here to make a mounting flange that goes on here
and that'll securely mount the motor on here and I wrap some tape around here so
these wires are but protected as it goes through here and the power cord goes
through the other hole and they're going to wire it up to these switches and on
their low-speed
now with the box mounted item mat tighten this strain relief so ideally
I'd have this style of cover on here but I couldn't find one with to switch holes
in it so I'll just use one of these cheap vinyl ones for now high setting
quieter than the low setting so I'm kind of disappointed this motor is actually a
fair bit louder at the 1150 rpm setting I'm just sort of adding things as I
figure them out I know I need a piece of plywood right here to hold the platen
which is going to be cut out of this piece
the table tilts around the platen like so and I figure it will attach with a
piece with a slot on the bottom and the bolt that goes through for locking it so
next I need to figure out how to attach this bolt and I'm going to do that by
cutting a slot in this piece here so the centre of rotation for this table should
probably be about the top of the table or right about here so with respect to
the table this bolt traces an arc that goes something like this I think I need
to carve out a little bit more here so that the table can drop down a bit as
it's tilted so this table is just a placeholder for now and I was thinking
of making a similar bracket on this side to hold the table better but then how
would I get the sending belt out so I'll worry about that later I'll try
to figure out how to put the Duster out on here without interfering with the
table I did some more work off-camera I added this thing here which goes around
this yoke and then a dust collection is going to pull the air out the back so
that goes on here and then the motor slides forward and this closes it off
here and then it also glued together piece here which goes in here like this
and that's going to get glued together that the whole dust shroud comes off
like this I think it's best if I glue those pieces together in place so I can
be sure it'll fit with the glue drying on that I cut out the final version of
this bracket here it just kind of clamp it in place to see if I got the right
range of motion here so that's good so I know that goes from right about here I
made another one like this but I have to put it on the sander to get the
alignment just right oops I need to cut a slot in that before I
can get it out so I put it back in place clamped a square on it then use that to
get the alignment of these things drill pilot holes and now I can mount them
with two screws each this time because otherwise they just swivel around us I
added a threaded insert to the back of the table and that makes it easier to
make and install simple curved platens for profile sanding
I've also done a bit of other work off-camera like cutting a slot in here
so I can just pull this top wheel out which will make belt changes easier and
a cover for here that seals it up better for better dust collection I still need
to make something that fits on here to help suck in the dust and I made the
dust collector port right here I still need to screw that on and this is for
locking the motor in place I still need to improve on that and I've quite slots
in the column this one is for 42 inch belt this one is for 48 inch belts and
up here is for 72 inch belts so Dinesh's built a strip center when I left to
build a belt grinder well it works his bone I couldn't find any to buy 72 inch
grinding belts locally so I bought some of these six by 48 and metal cutting
belts from busy bee tools and I'll just cut myself a two inch belt off of one of
those and let's switch it over to belt grinder mode
so I figure I'll probably do most of the course grinding directly against the
wheel here because that's more efficient but of course I can still use the table
and have the sparks just hit the floor
one drywall screw gone in five seconds
well it looks like half an horsepower against the wheel is adequate for my
purposes I think this is ready for some green paint so I took this hander all
apart and painted all the pieces green though I didn't film that and now I'm
putting it all back together and I still don't have a 72 understanding belt but
if I did the upper wheel would be up here I'm still not sure what I'll end up
using the sander as most but I kind of liked the idea of having a really beefy
strong sander