Vibration can be caused by the joint of the belt. I have a 6" belt with 9" disc that I bought from Axminster about 20 years ago and the skived belt does rattle a bit. I use belts from Machine Mart and they do the job but the skive is a bit lumpy. I have used industrial ones and even they can be lumpy. Perhaps some one here has used belts from other suppliers and can comment.

Not really the right tool for sharpening tools. Its for sanding etc isn't it ?
BobH

Try a decent belt first then consider replacing the machine.

I swopped my Draper belt & disk sander, about 1/4 decent so it did an acceptable job, for a RJH Antelope band-facer which is much, much better performer than I'd anticipated. Proper pro ones are better still but this beast runs them fairly close. Objectively I paid far too much money for it and its Gryphon grinder mate but both have effective built in vacuum dust collection stands and, after 30 odd years, all the sweeping, hoovering, wiping and complaining about dust getting everywhere was getting a bit old. £900 worth of old in this case!

The uber cheap belt and disk sanders can be awful. Wide tolerances and "Customer paid, passed QC" issues. Depends on your luck. Some are, accepting their inherent limitations, fine out of the box. Some need a bit of titivation and some will always be ruff as a badgers backside. Rare to find one that is irredeemable but considerable sensitivity to belt tracking adjustment is common and can test your patience. You'd have thought that the spring tension systems would have lessened the sensitivity as compared to the solid screw adjuster type but thats not been my experience. Quality belts really help here. The Draper OEM ones I got with mine usually needed a tweak at each start up and about every 15 to 30 minutes in use.

Bargain belt multi-packs aren't good idea. The joint doesn't last forever in store and decent belts last so long that you will rarely change them. Best to get the disks when you needed them. The stickum stuff is pretty much past its sell by date after a year or so. Takes a lot longer before it really won't stick any sense but everything works better with a properly stuck on disk.

I found a cheap Picador plain bearing spindle linisher to work much better than it had any right to do. Objectively a rather better performer overall than the Draper belt and disk one that replaced it. But I needed the disk and bigger belt. Soon learnt the little tricks and techniques to get the best out of the Draper. The Draper was a perfectly adequate tool but I was always aware of working around its limitations.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 25/09/2017 11:13:44

Stan Bray sugests that a belt sander is a good idea for tool sharpening in his book "Introducing the Lathe".

Ian S C

I have one of these, cheap & cheerful, and can easily stall if you put too much pressure on. Good enough for wood, aluminium, cleaning up brass, MS, etc. only two grades of belt available though, 80 & 120 grit, would like to see finer grits e.g. 280, 320,400 etc. The scarfed joints do click as they come round but overall it does what it's designed for simple DIY & tidy up. tracking is simple enough with a yellow adjuster & stays fairly on track once set up. It will move with excessive lateral pushing tho'

Any finer polishing I have to resort to emery paper/cloth, starting out with 180 grit & working my way through 240, 320, 400, 600, then onto wet & dry 800, 1000, 1500, plus elbow grease! I do have a couple of buffing wheels & polishing rouge for any last bit of clean up.

**LINK**

George.

Contrary to what some others have said, I actually find the Chinese sanders okay, I got a 4" warco belt sander and ive only ever used the standard belts on it, and it works fine if you use it properly. Make sure the tracking is right, make sure the belt is going in the right direction for the joint.

The drive can get gummed up with wood dust but it's not a major issue.

Michael W