Why is a belt sander necessary for your workshop?

Why is a belt sander necessary for your workshop? This is one man questions that comes up a lot when a customer first setting up and or looking to add a new sanding tool to his/hers workshop.  The industrial belt sander is one of your more important pieces of woodworking tools that you should have in your workshop next to the chop saw, table saw, your surface planer and for that matter wood glue.  A machine operator can complete a lot of different sanding operations with this belt sanding equipment such as:

• You can bevel edges
• Debur sharp edges
• Polish surfaces
• Flatten surfaces
• Round a sharp edge.
• Polish and buff your material.
• Final material finishing.
• Rough sanding to remove material imperfections.

What is also great about the Kalamazoo Industries belt sanding machines is that you can also put any style belt from various belt manufacturers on our units such as (a Scotch Brite belt and or a lapping belt). We set the gap between the guard and the platen or pulleys wide enough to put various on that sander yet not get anything caught in it such as fingers.

To help you determine what sanding belt to use for your sanding operation check out “Having the right belt for your belt sander is important”by clicking here.

We make this possible so you can achieve your desire finish without having to have multiple belt sanding tools and if you have a tight workshop you’ll be able to use that space for another piece of equipment or an assembly area.

Equipment replacement parts

Having replacement parts for any piece of your industrial woodworking equipment is really important especially if your tool cost exceeds $150,000 and or if you need it up and running quickly so down time is kept to a minimum. So you can quickly get back to work and finish your customers orders.  So we’ve designed all of our equipment to alloy you to replace a broken part quickly and efficiently.

Each machine page whether it’s the replacement store page and or the general information page will have a manual for that particular piece of equipment and a parts list.  Those are free of charge to have unlimited downloads.

Need replacement parts for your Kalamazoo Industries belt sanders? Click here to be taken to the online replacement parts store.

What material can you sand with a belt sander?

You can sand various materials with a belt sander.  Below is a short list of what you can sander with a belt sander.

• Metal
• Plastic
• Wood
• Aluminum
• Brass

Where can our belt sanders be used? 

We’ve designed our sanders to be used in any heavy to lite use work environments such as metal foundries to a home work shop and even a school workshops  because the TEFC motor and sealed bearings and power supplies available for many of our units.  Below is a list of different type facilities that our belt sanders can be used in.

• Automotive workshop
• Aerospace workshop
• Metal fabrication shop
• Machine shop
• home workshop
• Woodworking shops

As a reminding when specking out your belt sander be sure to check with your electrician to be sure that you have the appropriate power supply to run your sanding machine.

What to look for in a high quality belt sander…..

• Type of motor being used on the belt sander?  On the Kalamazoo Sanders we use a total enclosed fan cooled motor.  So debris can’t get into the motor and fry the motor.
• Type of bearings being used on the belt sanders.  We used sealed ball bearings on all of our sander.  We do this so you don’t have to remember to grease the bearings and or worry about debris wrecking the bearings.
• Where the belt sander is designed and assembled.  We design, manufacture and assemble all of our belt sanders here in Kalamazoo, MI with locally sourced materials.  That locally sourced materials included castings (both steel and aluminum), hot rolled and cold rolled steel.   This material all comes from America.  This is also a benefit so we don’t have to pass along to the customer any taxes that are imposed on import materials.
• Where the replacement parts are manufactured.  All parts that includes replacement parts are manufactured here in Kalamazoo, MI.  So any standard replacement part that’s order is quickly ship out.
• What material goes into manufacturing replacement parts.  Having high quality replacement parts are necessary so your belt sander will run properly for many years to come.  Our replacement parts are the exact same parts that go into manufacturing our belt sanders.  So no worries.  The replacement part or parts that you order will be the exact same parts that originally built with.
• Customer service.  Even though this doesn’t go into producing a high quality belt sander this is also important.   Our customer service is based in Kalamazoo, MI.  So if an issue arises early on or later on in the life of the belt sander questions can be answered and solved quickly so your tool is back up running quickly.

Keeping your sanding belts clean…..

Keeping your sanding belts clean is a very import step that is over looked by many operators.  Having build up on belts will impact the sanding belts performance.  For wood you can use an abrasive cleaning stick would be one method. For steel you will need to experiment.

Look for the right type of sanding belts…..

When shopping for replacement belts make sure you get no-lap belts for your belt sander.  The joint typing being used is a butt joint with high strength tape.  This type of joint is stronger than lap joints and can put the replacement belt back on the belt sander either direction.  Lap joints have a tendency to have high spots in the belts and have direction arrows indicating what direction to put your belts back on the belt sander.

What types of belt should I use? 

Having the right belt for your application is important.  That belt could present a positive outcome and or a negative outcome.   There are some things that you should take into consideration when being your research.

• What do you want to do?  Do you want to polish and or deburr? Once have an answer for that then that will take you to the next step.
• If your going to do deburring then you will need to determine what grit you will need.   That’s all going to be based on how much material you would like to remove.

Why is a belt sander necessary for your workshop conclusion

Again are you looking to up grade your belt sanding unit and or looking to purchase your belt sanding unit for your workshop so you can complete a specific finishing task faster?  Again the belt sander can complete various tasks quickly.  Again belt sander can:

• You can bevel edges
• Debur sharp edges
• Polish surfaces
• Flatten surfaces
• Round a sharp edge.
• Polish and buff your material
• Finishing

Come check us out at kalamazooind.com and check out our industrial sanding woodworking tools.

We offer several different size belt sanders both wet sanders, dry sanders and sanders with vacuums available. We start with a 1SM  1 x 42 inch belt sander and then go all the way up to S14D 14 x 103 inch belt sanders great for every application.  So go check our belt sander web page by clicking here and give us a call at (269) 382-2050 with your sanding application today.

Lastly many of our belt sanders have dust ports options.  So give us a call so we can locate your nearest dealer to order your Kalamazoo Industries belt sander today!!!!