15" wide belt sander owners

[John Pyeatt]

Hello,
John Pyeatt here from White Lake Michigan. I am in need of purchasing a small wide belt sander. Any pro's and con's from current owners, specifically, platen or no platen, pinch roller distance, brands to avoid or trust. Any feedback will be helpful. My finished piece always requires a .002" tolereance on .025" or .100" pieces that are always 2" wide. Thanks in advance.
John

[John Renzetti]

Hi John, I have an open ended widebelt that I bought from Leneave Machinery in NC. It's branded as a Northstate, but is the exact same machine that is brought in by Powermatic, except the Northstate is painted white and turned out to be $1000 cheaper. I was very pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of the machine and it's performance. It was setup dead on right out of the box. It takes a bit bigger belt 17x54" than the others on the market. Also has about a 1" greater width capacity.
Leneave was a good company to deal with. I bought this machine on the recommendation of some friends who had bought it.
I put a digital readout from Accurate Technologies on it since it doesn't come with this option. Also my machine is 7.5hp 3phase, but they are available in 5hp 1ph.
If you need anymore info let me know.
take care,
John

[John Pyeatt]

John ,
Does your machine have one grinding contact roller or the platen setup?
John

[John Renzetti]

hi John, Sorry I should have mentioned that. I has an adjustable platen. I think if you go to the WMH or Powermatic website you can download the manual. If you can't I have a pdf version that I can email you.
Just email me if you need it.
I also put my machine on those Zambus casters. Makes moving that 1000lb machine a lot easier.
take care,
John

[John Pyeatt]

Any Sunhill Machinery owners out there?

[Richard McComas]

I have a Bridgewood 15-inch open-end wide belt. It too has been a good sander and “dead on out of the box”. Haven’t had a single problem nor had to make any adjustment to the machine since I bought it in 1999. It comes with an American made Baldor motor and was test ran and fine tuned before leaving the factory.

It has an adjustable/removable platen. Manual says, “Use the platen for finish sanding, remove platen to use as a thickness sander, however I think these small wide belts (5 and 7.5 HP lack the power for a lot of heavy thicknessing (is that a word) Wilke Machinery has a good reputation for sales and service.