Thanks for the nice comments, Dave. We don't get to -15º but it does get hot as hell in the summer in Dallas. That was my main motivation for making the machine shop, as my garage is impossible to insulate and cool. We've had some pretty cold days and my insulation is apparently efficient. It also deadens sound well so I don't bother my neighbor's baby during its naps.
In the summer, machining was difficult because I drip salty rust drips on my tools. Also, when the shop was unheated, warm fronts after cold spells would make all the cast iron sweat and rust.
I listen mostly to our Public Radio music station. My taste leans toward the eclectic. I loves me some Pink Floyd, too.
I have a little 4x24 belt sander that I want to convert similarly as yours. I just wear a cotton knit glove when I press the back of my belts.
I'd like to come up with some sort of pad to put over the platten. As it is, it is useless. I have the best belts money can buy, but they still have a bump at the taped seam. I was thinking of a 2-ply pad. Felt under a thin sheet of steel to soften the the bumps but maintain squareness. If I can get that figured out, I have plans to put a rest on the 2x48 grinder.
I have several types of belt grinders. One is a 1x48 that I've stepped down the speed. The belt I use on it is completely worn out, but it does a perfect job of deburring and lightly chamfering small aluminum parts, and polishing rough ground radius.
For rough shaping, I use a 10" disk sander. It has a good flat plate guide so I can grind square edged curves with it, but the cut is course and requires smoothing. I also modified flap wheels to use on my bench grinder.
The finer slow belts do a great job of polishing the grind marks out. Sometimes it is easier than chucking a part on a rotary table on my mill which makes nice round-overs and radius's but still have to be de-burred and set-up time is a bit tedious.
I have a good horizontal band saw that cuts very square, but i also have a non-ferrous fine toothed carbide blade I use in my table saw with a very accurate slider to cut small parts perfectly smooth and square. The runout on my Powermatic 2000 is about 2-3 thousands at the teeth of a 10" blade, so cuts are very smooth with almost no teeth marks.