# Delta Belt Sander



## mickri (Nov 26, 2018)

I picked up on older Delta belt sander over the holidays.  $40.   Another estate sale find.  It came with 320 grit, 100 grit and 24 grit belts.  The 100 and 24 grit belts need to be glued together.  Is this typical for belt sander belts?  Also included was the original owners manual and parts list.  The bearings in one of the wheels is a little noisy.  How do you or can you lubricate the bearings. No mention of lubricating the bearings in the owners manual.  I bought some 80 grit belts at Ace.  The platen is very solid.  There is a support arm that you can put against platen to keep if from flexing.  Was not hard to adjust the angle on the table.  It needs a switch in the power cord.  Right now you plug it in and it runs.  Runs smooth.  No vibration and the belt tracked nicely on the wheels. 

The only negative is the tires on the wheels.  The tires are some kind of plastic glued to the wheels and are cracked with a piece missing on one wheel.  You can buy replacement wheels but they are expensive.  I am thinking about using a bicycle inner to make new tires.  Any other suggestions?

I have no place to put this in my garage.  It will sit on one of my workbenches for now.  A major reorganization of the garage appears to be necessary.


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## Ken from ontario (Nov 26, 2018)

That's a good looking sander, I would replace the bearings or if the size of the wheels are around 2", explore the skateboard wheels that come with bearings ,for the bigger wheels I would look at castors , you may need to put a crown on them but at least they are not too expensive.



mickri said:


> The 100 and 24 grit belts need to be glued together. Is this typical for belt sander belts?



Try Ceramic sanding belts ,they are amazing and last a long time, if you're looking for a special adhesive tape to glue the belts, look for 3M VHB (single sided) tapes, ( but they are expensive)I have a few of them and they are most suitable for this application in my opinion, these VHB tapes come in variety of thickness and widths so for your belts I would search for the 1/2" or 3/4" wide maybe?


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## Nogoingback (Nov 26, 2018)

Congrats on the new sander.  I have one just like it and it's proven to be a good tool: I use mine all the time.  I also had to replace the
plastic wheels on mine, though that was years ago and I just bought the parts.  I imagine they were cheaper then.  The other down side
to these sanders is the flimsy platen, which at some point will be replaced. 

Edit.  Now that I look at your pic again, yours has a 3rd roller, while mine has a bearing in that position and. I imagine, a shorter belt.
Always wondered about that...


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## mickri (Nov 27, 2018)

Nogoingback The manual for model 31-350 shows the configuration that you have on your sander but without the table in place.  Here is a link to the manual.  http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=2742  The manual may also be in the hobby machinists downloads.  I don't have access to that section of the site so don't know if the manual is there.
I think that all of these belt sanders use a 1x42 belt.   There is one configuration shown in the manuals that uses a 1x44 belt.  The arm on your sander can be moved to support the platen like I have done.
I will scan the manual for my sander and post it here and download it to the downloads section if I can do that.
Still trying to figure out how to reconfigure my garage to have a place for my new toy.


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## Nogoingback (Nov 27, 2018)

mickri, thank you for the link to the download.  I haven't had  a manual for this machine and never understood how the idler pulleys
were supposed to be configured.  Mine are simply bearings, with traces of the rubber or plastic that was bonded to them.  Ken's
suggestion to use skateboard wheels is excellent and I'll look into it.  I'll also reposition the support arm against the platen.  Great stuff.


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## mikey (Nov 27, 2018)

Looks pretty good, especially the backing for the platen. Hope you can find replacement wheels for that thing or perhaps fabricate something. I agree with the ceramic belts - they are awesome!


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## mickri (Nov 27, 2018)

Replacement wheels are available but are very, very expensive.  All of the bearings on my wheels are good except for the one on the upright that is a little noisy.  Hopefully I can get some lubricant into that bearing.  Should not be too hard to make replacement wheels or adapt skateboard wheels.  The tires have seen better days.  In my research I have found people who have used a variety of stuff for replacement tires and even a few people who are using the sander without tires.  Rearranging the garage to find a place for the sander is going to take some work.  And I may have some more toys in another week.  Another local estate auction selling out a hobby machinist's garage full stuff.  Who knows what I might find.


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## mikey (Nov 27, 2018)

My belt sander wheels are just plain aluminum, no tires. Upper one has a crown, though. If one of your wheels is crowned, it is likely the tracking wheel and needs that feature to work well.


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## Nogoingback (Nov 27, 2018)

These sanders have an adjustment for tracking built into the upper wheel assembly, so the plastic upper and lower wheels have no crown.
Don't know about the smaller ones, but now that you mention it, I could just turn an aluminum wheel and press it into the bearing.
Thanks Mike, I needed another project!


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## mikey (Nov 28, 2018)

Nogoingback said:


> These sanders have an adjustment for tracking built into the upper wheel assembly, so the plastic upper and lower wheels have no crown.
> Don't know about the smaller ones, but now that you mention it, I could just turn an aluminum wheel and press it into the bearing.
> Thanks Mike, I needed another project!



Hey, what are friends for?


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## mickri (Dec 3, 2018)

Used the belt sander for the first time today to sharpen a small chisel.  What a difference from using the bench grinder.  No comparison on how easy it was to get a flat, sharp edge on the chisel compared to using the bench grinder.


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## mikey (Dec 3, 2018)

Wait until you compare grinding tool bits on a belt sander vs a bench grinder. It is quite a revelation.


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## mickri (Dec 11, 2018)

You are so correct about grinding tool bits.  Much easier.

The small idler wheel on the upright has a noisy bearing.  Not bad but it is noisy.  Is there any way to get some lubricant into the bearing? 

 I took the wheel off today and cleaned everything off the outside.  The sander must have been used a lot on wood because the wheel was covered with oily caked on sawdust.  After cleaning I laid the wheel on it's side and put some AW46 that I am using on my lathe on the side of the bearing.  Let it sit for awhile while I worked on other stuff.  Could not tell if any soaked in.  It sounds a little better after the cleaning.

Any suggestions other than making making a new wheel.  The current wheel is plastic and will probably break if I try to replace the bearing.


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## mikey (Dec 12, 2018)

The bearing is probably shielded, possibly sealed. Here is a video on how to get those seals off so you can lube the bearing: 




I should think any bearing grease would work. 

As for the wheel, no, I don't know what to do about the wheel other than to make a new one or buy a replacement. Maybe someone else has ideas?


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## just old al (Dec 12, 2018)

I have to confess that when it comes to small idler wheels for things like this I've repurposed caster wheels normally used on the bottoms of machines. Get one with a reasonably flat profile (slight curve will center the belt (chuck it up in the 4-jaw and clock it concentric. Then bore to fit a bearing and press/Loctite it in on-centre.

Cheap and cheerrful, and a good way to reuse the odd caster you might have picked up in a box lot at a boot sale, or even new thewy're inexpensive compared to buying new lengths of large-diameter plastic.


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## mickri (Sep 27, 2020)

Since this thread just got a like thought I would update on the noisy bearing.  The plastic seal came right off no problem.  Packed it up with grease and the seal went back into place.  The bearing is still a little noisy but no where near like it was.


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