A belt sander or a sheet sander?

rodneyja59 · 31 May 2004

Which is better?
A belt sander or a sheet sander? Apart from the cost, belts are about £45, and sheet about £15, and replacement belts seems to be cheaper, but a they have a greater area, I assume its swings and roundabouts. Also I’ve used a belt sander, and clearly the belt goes round in a single direction, but what happens with a belt one? Does the sheet just move back and forwards?
Job required: I have just had new bedroom carpets laid have 11 doors to reduce in height by about 1mm to 5mm.

fitter · 31 May 2004

For the job that needs to be done, a belt sander, it would take forever using any other sander.

fitter · 31 May 2004

Or better still, how about a cheap power plane, screwfix (who else?) £23.39.

AdamW · 31 May 2004

I own a JCB power plane. It is great at planing lots of things quickly (I got it for doors myself)

They can make a LOT of mess, if the shavings bag gets full or clogged the shavings all blow out of the bottom and turn the room into a hamster cage in 10 seconds flat!

Also they are vicious at the beginning and especially the end of a stroke: remember to cut the corners off at 45 degrees or you may have large shards of wood getting ripped off your door and flung at the nearest bystander.

masona · 31 May 2004

AdamW said:
They can make a LOT of mess, if the shavings bag gets full or clogged the shavings all blow out of the bottom and turn the room into a hamster cage in 10 seconds flat!

Do you dress up as a hamster as well ?

mildmanneredjanitor · 6 Jun 2004

The trick is to plane run the plane a couple of inches, then plane from the opposite direction. This prevents the blade from splintering out the end grain.

Remember not to travel right to the other end on the second stroke.

Do this for each pass.

Hope this is clear.

pipme · 7 Jun 2004

How do you sand an internal corner with a belt sander ? They have a relatively large working radius at the rollers etc........ Horses for courses ? £45 + £15 = £60 covers virtually all mechanisedl sanding ?
P

aussie1 · 11 Jun 2004

you can sand small corners with orbital sander or corner sander made for the job,I dont really like belt sandres as they tend to dig in to much and make bumps,I realy prefer to plane.

mildmanneredjanitor · 11 Jun 2004

use a very sharp chisel to scrape the surface clean in the corners.

rodneyja59 · 16 Sep 2004

Update on this.

I got the belt sander from screwfix, and it worked a dream. But make sure the bag does not fill up and I wore a mask also, as dust goes everywhere. Recommend it and the belt sheets are cheaper than B&Q on screwfix.

Would recommend screwfix also. Three orders placed and just one problem (wrong colour) and that was fixed very quickly.