Is there a specific purpose to a belt/disc sander?

[Michael Yadfar]

It was just a random thought that popped up in my head. When I was in high school, I took four years of woodshop, and I remember the belt/disc sander being more of a pencil sharpener than anything else. I remember using it a few times when I was just a hair off a cut, but it could have just been done with the miter saw, and the belt sander has a tendency of not being completely square. Working in my own shop, I've never came across a circumstance where I felt that I really need to buy a belt/disc sander, but they make them, so there must be a purpose

[Barry Richardson]

I use them for many things, for example, if I need to make a circle, I draw it with a compass, bandsaw it out, and sand it to the line, I clean up the ends of segments for segmented turning, and also flatten the bottom of vessels after turning if they warp, They make shaping small pieces fast and easy for jigs and what-not, I make a ton of irregular shaped plaques and clean up the straight and convex edges with it, Insides need a spindle sander which is also very useful, although you can use the top to the belt for a lot of inside curves. you can flatten the face of small boards too short for the planer. You can chamfer the ends of dowels, puta a taper on shims, Lots more but i'm tired of typing. If you're a traditional woodworker, you might not use it much, but otherwise it's one of those machines that you can do without, but once you have one, you wonder how you ever did...

[Dave Zellers]

What Barry said. So many situations where you want to be holding the piece, not the sander.

Tapered plugs and lots more.

[Dave Lehnert]

What Barry said. So many situations where you want to be holding the piece, not the sander.

Tapered plugs and lots more.


I have a Shopsmith belt and disk sander.
Using a shopsmith I have the advantage of a variable speeds. I can hold the work piece and shape by hand. On the Shopsmith the disk sander can be advanced by the quill to sneek up on a cut line. Kinda like using a hand plane and shooting board.
That being said, I think most sanders made for woodworking run at too high a speed.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

In his book on segmented turning, Malcolm Tibbets recommends and demonstrates making a jig for use on a disk sander to get the precise angles needed to have tight joints on the segments before gluing them up.

Among other uses, I use my disk sander for truing up the ends of T-track segments when building jigs that incorporate T-track.

[Steve Kohn]

I have a Shopsmith belt and disk sander.
Using a shopsmith I have the advantage of a variable speeds. I can hold the work piece and shape by hand. On the Shopsmith the disk sander can be advanced by the quill to sneek up on a cut line. Kinda like using a hand plane and shooting board.
That being said, I think most sanders made for woodworking run at too high a speed.


I totally agree about the speed of most sanders being too fast. I've restored a PM belt/disc sander that was 3 phase. I added a VFD and extensively use the variable speed feature to make the work much easier to control. I also have a PM edge sander and would love to make it variable speed also. Unfortunately the 2 HP motor on the edge sander is single phase and it would cost too much to replace the motor and add the VFD.

[Michael Yadfar]

I already figured that it is more of a luxury tool than a necessity, but it's nice to learn what it's specifically used for. I was probably taught in high school wood working class, but don't really remember anything about it, as I learn more from experience.

[John K Jordan]

I use belt/disk sanders for so many things. I have three (different sizes) and two with belts and no disk.

It might depend largely on what you do. I make and repair so many different kinds of things in various materials so the sanders get a lot of use. Great for certain types of sharpening too.

JKJ

[Cary Falk]

I find an edge sander much more useful unless you are talking a 24" disc sander.

[Tom Ewell]

Buddy gave me a 'surplus' 6x12 rig with Baldor motor that'll shape stuff at a surprising rate. Radius corners are nothing for this thing.
It came out of a machine/fabrication shop so it had a history of metal work.

Following a bandsaw rough cut, one of these plus a decent spindle sander will let you do most things shaping wise, curves and the like (if you're good at free hand to the line) with finish sanding to follow.
This assumes that the project is small enough to bring to the machine, of course.

[Ole Anderson]

I have an old Craftsman 6x48 that years ago I removed the 9" disk (too flimsy of a disk and table) and upgraded to a full 1 hp TEFC motor. I used it for production sanding edges and knocking off corners of thick aluminum pieces for my barefoot ski booms. That was over 15 years ago. Had affordable edge sanders been available, I would have have loved to go that route. I fabbed an aluminum vertical fence that angles across a few inches of the platen to avoid wearing on one spot on the belt and which made it a poor man's edge sander. Now I use it all the time to give a slight roundover to smaller pieces, flatten small rough spots, sharpen axes, in short it is still one of my more used tools in the shop. I do wish at times I had a good disk sander, just recently I had to put a disk in my TS to radius corners of my pool table rails, It did the job but the poorly balanced disk, spinning too fast, vibrated the heck out of the saw.

[Stan Calow]

I find it easier to sharpen on the disk/drum sander than on a grinder, once the tool's been shaped.

[roger wiegand]

I have a Delta 6" belt/12" disk that I use a fair amount. Could certainly get by without it, but picked it up cheap at a garage sale and find it quite useful any time I need to trim a very small amount off of small pieces. I also use it a lot in rebuilding player pianos and organs to take the old pneumatic cloth and glue off the edges of the motors to prep them for recovering.

[Dick Brown]

I have a 10" disk, 6x48 belt sander and would find it hard to get by without it for the type of work that I do in my shop. I do about 50/50 metal and wood projects. It is used probably, not time wise, but more often than any other tool in the shop. Sharpening drill bits, taking the burr off metal after cutting with the saw or torch, shaping wood and metal parts, and yes, sharpening pencils. After having one, wonder how I functioned before. Could I get by without it? Yes. Would I like to? NO!

[Daniel O'Neill]

I have a craftsman combination sander and it's pretty helpful. I do use my ROS a lot. I was making a stamp holder for my wife and used the sander to snugly fit the interchangeable pieces. It worked great. I don't have a lot of tools and I'm in 1/2 a garage so I've thought about selling it but it's helped me shape chisels pencils :) and jigs so I think I'll keep it for now. Especially since I don't have a lot invested in it. (Just a drive belt and some sandpaper)

Edit: I've read that a lot of guys use them for finish sanding instruments.

[Ben Rivel]

Yea if you work with any metal a belt sander really is a must have IMO. Wood, well you can get by but there are some circumstances where its just nice to have.