A belt sander also known as strip sander is an electric device that is used in shaping and finishing woods and other materials. They are not used that often in woodworking. But you might feel the need of using a belt sander suddenly. So it’s best to keep a few strip sanders in your furniture workshop. They are incredible at saving your time and anyone who has been doing these works for a long time can tell how hard and slow the work is. But it’s a very important job if you want to ensure high quality for your workpiece. Smoothing your woodpiece using a belt sander in a proper way will make the piece perfect for painting or varnishing. But if you can’t make the smoothing finely then it will make your whole efforts go in vain as your workpiece won’t reach the certain quality level you wanted it to.
You can use the smooth or coarse side of your belt to either smoothen the surface or the heavy grain to get rid of extra materials quickly. Belt sanders come with sandpaper that turns with rollers.
Bench sanders or stationary sanders are two types of sander that includes either a rotary sander or rather a disc sander most of the time. These are powerful enough to shape woods or sharpen tools. Have a look at Drillly’s belt sanders review.
There are different types of belt sanders and the way you use them can be different individually. We’ll describe how to use a belt sander and mostly, all belt sanders bring the best of this exact way.
Using A Belt Sander
You can use a belt sander by hand. When you are about to smooth the surface with a sander, make sure your clothes are out of the way. Keep the extension cord on your shoulder so it won’t come on the way.
Turn on the sander and wait for it to go at full speed. Use both your hands, ease the sander down with a slight forward motion.
The belt is going to grab the wood and keep sending the sander forward. You will have to hold it tightly. Try the sander to work with the grain of the wood, as much as possible. Do not let it stay in one place. A belt paper with a very coarse belt can tear up a big amount of stock very fast. keeping the sander moving can prevent such inconvenience. Keep checking progress frequently. It is much better to work in small increments while using belt sander with slight pressure than pushing and tearing the wood piece.
Using A Stationary Sander
If you want to mutate your belt sander into a stationary sander then put it in an upside down position on your workbench. This works great in sanding smaller pieces and trying to form edges. When you clamp it on the bench, make sure to turn on the trigger. Now hold your wood piece against the spinning belt to form your desired shape.
Changing Belts
Gradually abrasive material wears away from the belt sander. Which can be fixed only by replacing a new belt on it.
Before you start changing the belt of a sander, disconnect the power cord. Usually a belt sander has a release lever on one side that releases the tension between the front and back roller. Slide the sanding belt off of the roller once you released the tension.
To attach a new belt, center it onto the rollers, release the lever and turn on the sander so you are all done.
Conclusion
There are many types of belt sanders on the market. All of them claim to be powerful and good in quality which is not true in all cases. There is a few sanders which are completely useless and lack the oomph to deal with the hard work. If you have experience with these machines then you shouldn’t have difficulty in choosing and buying the best one.