The Armour Archive

Well ok not just for him but I know he will like them as he has the same tool fetish as I do.

It has taken me a while to finish this with life getting in the way but I am satisfied of the results. A couple of things left to do: tensionning spring, spark deflectors at the top and back and probably turn another tensionning wheel as this one is less than perfect.

A question if I may. When I use the slack part of the belt, it tracks to on side or the other depending on where I put the pressure. Will this get corrected with the tensionning spring if I put enough tension on there. The drivewheel and tensionning wheel are already crowned so no help there.

Thanks for looking.

Pad

Where can I get something like that?

You can build one

Pretty nice job Padrig! A question if I may - what length is the belt itself?

Yes Josh, just build one. It's easy.

Gunvaldis, it's 2X72 belts.

Pad

Probably a dumb question, but how do you keep the belts from sliding off the rollers?

Stacy

Padrig- that is quite unique! Great construction and ingenuity. Are you going to attatch guards over the rollers? Did you use just an encased motor for the drive, and make the rollers or purchase them? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm very intrigued.

Stacy, the drivewheel and the tensioning wheel are sightly crowned to help keep the belt on track.

Hammerhand, yes I will add deflectors and I did use a TEFC motor. I purchased the contact wheel and drive wheel from Beaumont and turned the tensioning wheel myself.

Pad

That looks a lot like one of the interations I went through when rebuidling my sander. Looks good!

When slack belt sanding, unless you have a pretty good amount of tension, the belt will move unless you're sanding whatever right in the middle of the belt with no side pressure. I don't do much slack belt, and it still does it. There are a few things that will amplify the effect. The square tube within a square tube (when I tried it) was a relatively loose fit, and pressure on the belt will cause that to shift. If the pivot arm pivot is loose, it will do the same thing. The last thing that usually amplifies it, is if the wheels are grossly out of square.

Things look pretty good in the picture, so I'd go with the tension aspect first. Are you going to add a spring to the back of the idler arm or a spring inside the tubes? I've done both, neither seemed to have better performance. The spring inside the tube though shot the idler up up to hit the ceiling when a belt broke though...

Jamie

What did it cost to build this? I just bought a simalar one from Grizzly, but it has a shaft on the other side for a buffer.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G1015

Thanks for the tips Jamie. I was going to ask about how much pressure was needed for the spring but I see now that I need a lot. I will make it adjustable so I can give more slack to the belt if need be.

David, I havent totalled it yet but about 120$ for the wheels, about 50$ worth of steel (stand included), 20$ of bolts and 150$ for the motor. So around 350$ or so.

Pad

Hi Pad,

Cool sander, Pforge was correct the belt always goes to one side when pushing slack belt.
I have never thrown one off yet on my grizz.

A little flat black or machinery grey and you be good to go.

Thanks for the pics.

Would it be possible to put a plate on either side of the drive and idler pullers to keep the belt on the wheels? With no place to go that might solve the problem.

It would damage or destroy both the plates and the belt. A flying belt is unpleasant.

What about turning a pulley with sidewalls? So that the cross section would look like an " H "? not sure if that would work...

Just an update pic. I added the tensioning spring. Works great. Thanks for the tips for the tracking but I think I will keep it as is. Like Hal said the belt stays on, I just need to get use to it.

Now for the deflectors and a platen attachment for flat grinding.

Thanks for looking.

Pad

jgalak wrote:What about turning a pulley with sidewalls? So that the cross section would look like an " H "? not sure if that would work...

I tried it once. It didn't work too well. If the belt didn't dig into the sides, it rolled up the sides. Either way, it either ruined the belt or did a weird wiggly side to side movement.

Jamie

Pad,
how long is the belt from top wheel to bottom wheel (front)? Also How wide is your belt? I was thinking it might be good to have one around like that with a 4" wide belt.

David, there is about 24" from top to bottom. The belt is 2" large. I dont think you'd need 4". 2X72 belts seems to be the preferred for most applications, either armouring or knifemaking.

Pad

I dont know anything about machining, what are the different components made from(the base/stand, wheels and attachments mainly, the motor and belt are pretty self explanatory) and how much would you say was invested in this project? IE would it be cheaper just to get the grizzly 1015 slack sander than to try to make or have someone build a contraption like this?

Nice work Pat! Where did you buy the belt?

Actually I'm waiting for mine to grow up;P