Survey: Disc sanders -- who uses'em?

Most shops have a belt sander with the disc sander at the side.

I'm betting only a fraction of the use of the belt sander involves that disc ditty. In all the shops I've seen, I don't think I've seen anyone use one, except a moldmaker who had two huge dedicated pedestal-type disc sanders, about a two-foot disc, counterweighted table and all, fabulous machines, forgot the name, has a "K" in it, iirc.

For the people who do use them, I"m curious as to how/why. It seems to me that their one inherent flaw is a sfpm that varies with radius -- never seemed like a good idea to me.

I use a belt sander all the time, and I think many cnc shops have one parked by each machine. I actually have 5, three pedestals, one sears benchtop, and a Walls horizontal only benchtop, a real workhorse, but with belt centering problems. All the pedestals are bustid, tho.... too lazy/incompetent to fix'em.... goodgawd..... I use the Sears 99% of the time.... go figger....

Reply to
Existential Angst
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I have two home-made disc sanders, one is 2' diameter steel plate driven by a 1930's GE Century motor that weighs almost as much as my floor-mount drill press.

I use it mostly for wood but sometimes I used it for metal. The surface speed is whatever you choose -- use in the inner part or the outer part, as it suits the job.

Its original purpose was for trimming the beveled ends of picture frame rails and stiles, and furniture pieces, after rough-cutting on a tablesaw.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Yeah, the ones I have don't get a whole lot of workout, last belt grinder I got, I didn't even bother mounting the disc or its table. I've used the one on my 1" Delta to snag some aluminum castings once, but they're just not as handy for most things. I have drums for sanding curved wood on the drill press, a guillotine trimmer for doing miters. One big problem with the Delta is that it uses an odd-size disc. I had some PSA cement at one time, so discs COULD be made from sheets, but it's not really been useful enough to bother.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

I liked Segway's sander setup with the belt horizontal, minus the table so it could handle large pieces. The disk still had the table and was useful to sand bandsaw cutoffs square and smooth.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I see that now, but it's still true that different parts of the piece will be sanded at diff. sfpm's.... which I guess is not really that much of a biggie.

For small objects, like ends of dowels, etc, of different materials, etc, I gueess the disk has built-in variable speed!! Perty neat, never looked at it that way.

STILL, the small dinky ones seem to be relatively un-utilized, compared to regular belt grinders.

Reply to
Existential Angst

Existential Angst wrote in rec.crafts.metalworking on Wed, 18 May 2011 11:45:15 -0400:

Kalamazoo ?

Reply to
dan

I use one nearly every day for squaring the ends of silver wire, matching bevels on odd-shaped pieces, etc. when doing production work making jewelry.

Reply to
Mouse

At the shop where I sit, there's a belt sander that's used on any ol' random piece of stuff, from aluminum to inconel to plastic to broom handles; it's got room for a wheel on the other end of the shaft, which is capped off, and the belt is just out there flapping in the breeze - i.e., nothing flat to bear against if you need flat.

For flat, you'd use the standalone disk sander, also for any material, but handy for when you need the side to be flat.

There are several other bench grinders, but their wheels are reserved for specific materials (we work with exotic alloys sometimes) and a diamond wheel, and the _ONLY_ thing that's allowed to come into contact with the diamond wheel is carbide inserts.

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Heck! That's one of the _advantages_ of them. A disk sander works wonderfully at different SFPMs -- High speed for snagging, and low speed for touching up. That's where they "shine" (pun intended).

I'll go so far as to agree that they're more useful for woodworking than for metal, but they do well for both.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

I use the disk all the time on the belt sander, because...the belt paper is damn near ALWAYS ripped from some tard, and nobody uses the disk...so it's always pristine when I need it.

Reply to
vinny

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