Craftsman 6 x 48" belt sander.

[Michael Schuch]

This is my acquisition for the day:

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A Craftsman 6x48" belt sander. The pulley on the motor is a little tweaked to the motor bounces up and down then the motor is turning. I believe the problem is just the pulley, I think the motor shaft is straight. I will need to craft a table for it. I have some steel plate that should do the job.

$40

[Mike Stelts]

I have the same sander, bought on a whim. I ended up using it all the time. You'll need to fabricate the missing stop for holding workpieces on the belt. I think there're too much missing to reconstruct the disk sander.

[Jim Becker]

Very interesting old tool and something that could be quite useful. Fabrication of a guard for around the belt might be a good idea while you are cleaning things up. I'd probably change to a different switch, too.

[james manutes]

I have the same sander, bought on a whim. I ended up using it all the time. You'll need to fabricate the missing stop for holding workpieces on the belt. I think there're too much missing to reconstruct the disk sander.

I've got something very much like that , got that stop "fence" piece from Grizzly .

[Maurice Mcmurry]

That will be fun to bring back. I see some parts and similar machines on eBay.

[Michael Schuch]

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$80 for the fence off ebay. Considering the time it would take to build one which would probably not be as useful the price doesn't seem too bad. I bought this Craftsman belt sander for use vertically, hence I really need a table rather than just a stop. I did a little research on the old machinery site and the guys there say that the bearings for the upper roller are some kind of pressed in (and I would assume impregnated) pressed powder metal. Of course I would have preferred ball bearings. I am waiting on Amazon for belts and I haven't looked for a replacement motor pulley yet. I believe the vintage is somewhere around late 1940's.


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My father brought this Delta (Walker Turner) 4 x 52.5" belt /disc sander home from work about 40 years ago. I spent half my summer (I was about 12) taking it apart, stripping it, repainting it and putting it back together. My father bought new bearings for it at the time. I love this sander and use the heck out of it but it sits in the metal side of my shop and using it for both wood and metal sanding gets really messy. Not to mention wood dust lights quite easily with metal sparks. You can see the stop that my dad asked one of the shop guys to make for him (me). I use the stop some but I use the belt a lot for cleaning crud off of steel to prep for welding. The stop kind of just gets in the way for that. For wood the stop is really helpful as the sanding belt loves to grab wood of any decent size and rip it out of my hands.

I have wanted a Delta horizontal / vertical sander to use in a vertical orientation for a long time. When they do come up they are always priced higher than what they are worth to me. This Craftsman is actually heavier than I was expecting from the pictures. I think I should be able to get it up and running and get dome good use out of it.

P.S. A new switch is a good idea! I have several old motor starters (what I call contactors with start and stop switched) lying around from 3ph machines that I converted to VFD's. I hope that isn't a simple light switch, that seems like it would be under rated for running a motor.

I had considered recreating the disc portion of the sander. From the diagrams it looks like there is just a disc with sandpaper on it (of course) and then an identical table to the one I show above for the disc side of the sander. I am a little concerned about what looks to me like a pretty diminutive shaft mount for the table(s). It seems like it would not be very stable, but this design has been used for years and like stated above is said to be quite utilitarian.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I found a reasonable deal on an old Delta that was missing a lot of parts. I dedicated it to being used in the vertical position only and made the table out of wood. I still need to get the disc sorted out and make a drive belt cover.

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[Ole Anderson]

Similar to the Craftsman I have. I discarded the disc portions as the disc was just too wobbly. I did fab a vertical fence to use as a pseudo edge sander.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

These machines are very handy. I have a simple fence over the end on the 4 x 36. It gets a lot of use shaping curved profiles.

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