Okay so I have been happily using my Harbor Freight 12" disk sander for a few years. I never really gave it much thought, but it is really hard to not burn cherry when sanding it.
I developed the habit of doing some small sanding operations when the sander was spinning down and realized that I'd really like a lower speed sander, maybe really low speed. That got me wondering about variable speed options or maybe just a lower single speed than the Harbor Freight comes with (1725 rpm I think).
I see that other 12" and even 20" models tend to run at the same speed so maybe I am crazy, but it seems to me as if a lower speed would be nice. Is there a chance that different abrasives would be less prone to burning cherry lumber (I have been using the 12" disks from HF since they are cheap and locally available)? Even if that is the case I still think that a low speed option would be nice.
Adapting an EVS lathe motor and controller would be really nice, but more expensive that I want to spend. Is there some kind of speed controller that would work with the existing motor that wouldn't break the bank?
I might consider taking the sander it apart and seeing how hard it would be to convert it from direct drive to belt drive and using a stepped pulley setup.