Belt sander uses

[phil2010]

Bought myself a belt sander ,what projects do you use yours for.

 

[OPJ]

Is this a portable machine (where you run the tool over the wood)? Or, is it stationary (manoeuvre the wood)?

 

[phil2010]

I bought the belt sander from lidl,its a portable hand held or you can clamp it to a bench.

 

[matt]

Rapid stock removal.

I use mine to flatten panels after hand-planing but before using an orbital sander.

 

[OPJ]

Yep, same here, basically. I use my for initial sanding quite often, particularly where I might have a lot of material to remove... It'll get rid of any previous machining marks much faster than a decent random orbit sander.

It is important to keep the tool moving and to sand parallel to the grain and width of a board otherwise, you'll end up with lots of scratches across the grain. Of course, you can work diagonally first to flatten something and then finish off with the longitudinal sanding to remove those scratches.

I have tried using mine mounted on its side (horizontally) to sand small things... But, I found this quite dangerous. Anything small could easily be flung out of your hands (plus, it hurt a bit... ). A disc sander or even a vertically-mounted belt sander would be better for that.

Having done much sanding with one mounted upside-down but, you still need to be aware of the direction in which the belt is running.