Grizzly Wide belt sander

[James Stokes]

I stopped by a customers shop today. While we were talking I saw a wide belt sander there. I asked him how he liked having one and mentioned that I had thought about buying one. He told me he had an old grizzly that started giving him problems and he didn't want to bother with it so he went and bought a new one. He told me that if I wanted to haul the grizzly off it was mine. I will!
He said that when he tried to feed a board through it, it would just bog down. Any Ideas why it would do this?

[Cecil Arnold]

Yeah, you can only take off a very small amount of wood at a pass. If it is anything like the Performax 16/32 you can only get about 1/128 of white oak (14 1/5") in a pass without overloading. It's great for getting something level but to use in leu of a plane--forgit it.

[Todd Burch]

I don't know about the Grizzly, but my Bridgewood has an ammeter (amp meter?) on it. At any given time during full load, it should not pull more than around 20 amps. The meter rates to 30 amps. It's 5HP, single phase.

The motor might be shot. Be sure to blow out the control box and switch box, sometimes dust has a way of getting in there...

Todd

[Jeff A. Smith]

I stopped by a customers shop today. While we were talking I saw a wide belt sander there. I asked him how he liked having one and mentioned that I had thought about buying one. He told me he had an old grizzly that started giving him problems and he didn't want to bother with it so he went and bought a new one. He told me that if I wanted to haul the grizzly off it was mine. I will!
He said that when he tried to feed a board through it, it would just bog down. Any Ideas why it would do this?

Is it a wide-belt or a drum sander? Either way, what size?

[James Stokes]

It is a 20 inch Wide belt.

[lou sansone]

a couple of thoughts come to mind - BTW I have a 37" timesavers wide belt that I have rebuilt so I have a little experience, but not an expert .

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=19201




1. most widebelt sanders are belt drive from the motor to the sanding drive roller ( sometimes known as the contact roller ). The belts may have streched over time and now are starting to slip under a load. It would make it seem as if the motor was bogging down, when in fact the motor is fine, just the contact drum is slowing down due to the drive belts slipping.

2. There is a remote possibility that the motor bearings are shot. Does the motor spin freely? if you remove the sanding belt and run the motor how does it sound. Listen to it "decellerate" after reaching full speed and then shutting the power off. The motor will coast to a stop. How does it sound? It should sound "smooth" and not like a coffee grinder

3. Many larger wide belts have air opperated disk brakes that are activated when the emergency stop button is pressed. Is there any chance the the disk brake has become energized or out of adjustment to the point the it is trying to stop the motor under normal operating conditions?

that is all that comes to mind. they are pretty simple machines

lou

[Bill Crofutt]

James,

I should mention first that Grizzly doesn't make a 20" wide belt sander. We do have 18 and 24 though. There is an amp gauge on them, so you can see how many amps it is pulling. But my guess is either too heavy a cut (any sander will bog if pushed beyond its limits), the drive belt is loose or a combination of the above. It's unlikely to be a motor issue. If you can give me a little more information about what model it is, I can better point you towards a remedy.