Using a belt sander as a planer

[andrew whicker]

Hi,

Do wide belt sanders push the wood down when they go thru (like a planer)?

[Nick Decker]

Yup. Mine has pressure rollers fore and aft of the sanding drum, which I assume is pretty standard.

[Jim Becker]

Wide belt and drum sanders do remove stock, albeit not as "efficiently" as a planer with knives does. Obviously, you want flat stock first and if any appreciable amount of material has to be removed, the sander isn't the right tool.

[Dave Cav]

My experience with my widebelt (Safety Speed) is somewhere in the middle. The in and out feed rollers do push the stock down, but now as much as my planer. However, the table/conveyor belt is also resilient and your stock will be pushed down into the belt material a bit as well. I occasionally use my sander as an abrasive planer when the stock is too big to fit through the planer, or isn't appropriate for the planer (think end grain cutting board). I use a 40 grit belt to start (because I couldn't get a 36) and then the 80. I can take up to .060 per pass with the 40 grit belt depending on the rate of feed and the width and hardness of the stock. Yesterday we planed a juniper round that had been cut in half and resawn to rough flatness and thickness. It took about a dozen or fifteen passes to get both sides flat, taking between .035 and .060 a pass. Here's a picture of the round before sawing in half and resawing.
398760

[Mel Fulks]

Agree with Dave. Use only coarsest grit for "planer mode". And remember that you will have some seriously deep scratches, so you will also need 60 , 80, 100 to un-plow those fields.

[Richard Coers]

No, not like a planer. Unless you are talking about a hobby bench top thickness planer. An industrial thickness planer has feed roles, chip breaker, and a pressure bar. A thickness sander has spring loaded rollers that are just there to keep enough pressure on the wood to provide enough friction for the drive belt to feed it through. Big planers can exert enough pressure to take out a little cup, that would very unusual in a thickness sander.

[J.R. Rutter]

Since the sander feed belt moves things through from the bottom, it is pretty easy to shim underneath warped or cupped material to get the top flat(ish). It can be as simple as taping shims on if you don't have a hot glue gun or something similar. Then flip to the other face to bring it into plane.

[Albert Lee]

I have used my 45” wbs as a planer from time to time. Not very often. Not ideal machine for the job. You can only take off 0.3mm(less than 1/64”)....

[Nick Decker]

Since the sander feed belt moves things through from the bottom, it is pretty easy to shim underneath warped or cupped material to get the top flat(ish). It can be as simple as taping shims on if you don't have a hot glue gun or something similar. Then flip to the other face to bring it into plane.

This is especially handy for small parts that aren't long enough to send through the planer. I've had situations where I've jointed and planed a board, then cut it to final size (like for the sides of a box) and had it warp a bit. I usually use a sled for this, to make sure the conveyor has plenty of flat surface to grab onto.

[Bill Dufour]

If it did not hold down the wood the wood would shoot off as soon as it touched the belt. Make kickback look tame? Not sure which way the paper turns.
Bil lD

[Nick Decker]

The drum rotates in the direction that can, and will eject the wood toward the infeed. I had it happen with a little Jet 10-20 that I use to have. Trying to take too big a bite on a piece that had a taper along its length. The sander slowed, stalled and then spit it out across the room. Fortunately, I was standing to the side. Not as violent as a table saw, but it got my attention.