Wide Belt Sander

[Mr Mike Mills]

Hello

I am looking for some input or advise on wide belt sanders. I am looking for a new one for my shop at school. I am looking at the 42" wide machines. The two I am looking at is the Ironwood by stiles and Time saver 1300 models.

Does anyone have experience with either one of these.

I am wanting minimal knobs and buttons as students will be using these machines.


I really like the Timesaver is a midwest company located in a neighboring state. We have had a Buffuring 36" (stiles) wide belt sander for the past 10 years, it has been okay, but anytime I needed parts from stiles they seemed high priced, not only charged shipping, but also had a handling fee as well.

Thanks for your input.

Mike

[Dave Cav]

I had a Timesaver in my shop at school, and my experience with them was that customer service was pretty much non-existent and no documentation was available on line. It was a somewhat older Taiwan made model, and I got the impression they didn't want to deal with it (or me). I would be surprised if any of the smaller single head machines are still made in the US, but I could be wrong.

I do agree about the minimal knobs and buttons for student use.

My current (personal) widebelt is a Safety Speed Cut, 100% made in the US, and the customer support has been excellent. They are a very simple machine, easy to operate, and I have run up to full size 3/0 doors through them without any trouble.

[Darcy Warner]

I would buy anything I could, that would eliminate Stiles from the equation.

[Jeff Bartley]

I've never dealt with them, are they that bad?
What machine brands do they sell?

I don't have much experience with different brands but the big mill shop that I take work to had a Timesaver years ago and from what I gathered they were glad to see it go away.

I would buy anything I could, that would eliminate Stiles from the equation.

[David Kumm]

There are a few Euro sanders made now, EMC and SCM in Italy, Butfering are mainly Euro again, Houfek is Czech I think. Most of the others ( Timesavers included ) will be Taiwan or China. Not judging, just saying. For a 43" machine you would want at least 20 hp, electric eye tracking, combination head with 5-8" drum and 1.5-3" platen. I like a fairly soft or flexible platen as these are not veneer sanders anyway and you are just kissing the stock with the drum doing the work. A digital readout is nice but you can add a Proscale and make do. There are no really simple sanders. The electrics are complicated. I am not familiar with Safety Speed cut but the others are fairly similar. You get similar features for similar price with the Euro machines having a slight upcharge. Dave

[Darcy Warner]

I've never dealt with them, are they that bad?
What machine brands do they sell?

I don't have much experience with different brands but the big mill shop that I take work to had a Timesaver years ago and from what I gathered they were glad to see it go away.

Yes. I could write a short book as to why.

You have already alluded to one reason why.

Stiles basically controls the market for all the brands they sell. You need service out of warranty, 1800 bucks to show up, 250/hr after that, parts 5x the price (most components that fail are not proprietary), oh they can't fix it the first trip, hey you get to pay that again. They will not sell parts to anyone (machine owners are usually an exception) but how many owners/operators can diagnose what an issue is.

PLC goes out? About 10k for a new one, they will ship it to you, you can put it in, it won't work without a pin #, which requires another $2k visit for someone to punch that in.

That's just part of it.

[Jim Andrew]

Sounds like a good reason to buy a Grizzly.

[Darcy Warner]

Sounds like a good reason to buy a Grizzly.

They are starting to get close to that point, tried ordering parts for a project I needed to do, I gave up.

[David Kumm]

Probably everything in SD is a drive but I'd find out who would be the repair person you would use. I know Chris Peterson is in Minneapolis. I'd then call the repair guy and ask what machines he prefers to work on. That might help you find something you can deal with yourself. There is a lot of troubleshooting you can do for yourself. Dave

[Gregory Stahl]

Stiles has been great to me. Shipped me a part from Germany air freight to my door for free. Does not get any better than that.

Tech support is always available via phone and is very good.

[Darcy Warner]

Stiles has been great to me. Shipped me a part from Germany air freight to my door for free. Does not get any better than that.

Tech support is always available via phone and is very good.

Only under warranty I assume?
Any dealings with them outside warranty is horrible an expensive.

[Bobby Robbinett]

If you are interested in selling your older wide belt sander please hit me up. I am looking to buy a used model and don’t mind if it is old or needs a little TLC.

[Scott T Smith]

I’ve had good service from my Pioneer (Laguna) 37” WBS. Used it for 10 years - sometimes for days at a time.

I just replaced it with a used 3 head Timesavers 52”. In my area, Timesavers has a good reputation and I’ve found that the factory engineers have been very responsive to my questions thus far.

The only thing that I did not care for with the Grizzly machines is that I thought that they were underpowered for their size.