Shopsmith Forums

Greetings fellow sawdust makers with belt sanders.

Watching Nick's video on belt sander tune-up, I was wondering if your idler drum spins freely like Nick's does. Mine has more stiffness to it, although not as bad as the one he's working on. Despite the stiffness the belt sander is tracking nicely, at least for now. Thanks for your thoughts!



Tom

tomsalwasser wrote:Greetings fellow sawdust makers with belt sanders.

Watching Nick's video on belt sander tune-up, I was wondering if your idler drum spins freely like Nick's does. Mine has more stiffness to it, although not as bad as the one he's working on. Despite the stiffness the belt sander is tracking nicely, at least for now. Thanks for your thoughts!



Tom

It has been a few years now, but I think when I tuned mine up it spun pretty freely after I cleaned and greased it and removed all the old belt threads that had wrapped themselves around the axle.

The grease mixes with the sanding wood and sanding belt dust make a harder mixture for around the drive shaft. I believe you need to disassemble, clean and grease the drive shaft every year or two as most drive shafts really show wear when this is not done. My solution was to add a grease fitting to the drive drum. I added 3 alternating holes in the drive shaft so the spring would get lubricated at the same time.

algale wrote:It has been a few years now, but I think when I tuned mine up it spun pretty freely after I cleaned and greased it and removed all the old belt threads that had wrapped themselves around the axle.

Thanks Al. Glad to hear you've had a few trouble free years of belt sanding!

billmayo wrote:The grease mixes with the sanding wood and sanding belt dust make a harder mixture for around the drive shaft. I believe you need to disassemble, clean and grease the drive shaft every year or two as most drive shafts really show wear when this is not done. My solution was to add a grease fitting to the drive drum. I added 3 alternating holes in the drive shaft so the spring would get lubricated at the same time.

Thanks Bill! Since you mention the spring did you drill the idler drum? From what I understand they can be difficult to put back together so a grease fitting would be nice. Although Nick did just enough disassembly to lube the shaft.

gentlemen, I have watched Nick's Video and I am confused what end of the spring do you want to remove the Roll Pin to get the shaft to come out? The end that the Tension knob connects to?

I believe my unit just needs a good cleaning probably never been done.