Now thats a sanding belt!

2-1/2" wide removes a lot of material. Shown here our WIP (work in progress) of assembling the latest creation. Much thanks to kevin54 for r&d machine work and suggestions and hopefully he'll feel up to some production work. Yesterday we were able to make everything track straight and true. So some minor tweaks and final dimensions so all the designs can be sent to their respective parties. This is our first non direct drive unit so their was quite the learning curve.

Very nice ,good luck on your new business endeavors.

I would like to get one of these some day.

What are you using for "Gription"? O-rings? Don't answer if you don't want to.

Thanks! For the prototypes I have just a knurl turned into it. But for the productions ones its a combination of resin and Kevlar.

I like that.

You used the wrong keyword. That's a Belt Grinder.
Once you own one....or 3...you'll wonder how the hell you got by without one.
Nice work. Contact Sunray and do a 2 x 72 model with contact wheels( 8-10 inch) to attract knife makers.

now you need a diagonally slotted larger diameter rubber contact wheel at the bottom, so you can contour grind and have lateral clearance for longer parts.......

psst...

if you make the upper wheel crowned and make it turn in the vertical axis it will correct tracking......if you make it spring loaded with a handle.....its instant belt changes too....

used one like that in Switzerland ~40 years ago

theknurl said:

now you need a diagonally slotted larger diameter rubber contact wheel at the bottom, so you can contour grind and have lateral clearance for longer parts.......

psst...

if you make the upper wheel crowned and make it turn in the vertical axis it will correct tracking......if you make it spring loaded with a handle.....its instant belt changes too....

used one like that in Switzerland ~40 years ago

Click to expand...

Thats a good idea but we're real small company for a lot of accessories lol. There is about 6" of throat on the final version of that frame. But as of right now no, there is no crown on the idlers. We learned with knife sharpening shops that own our 1x42's this causes a crown in the belt which gives a high spot when sharpening blades. As of right now the 1x42s have no crowns but that may change with wider belts. And there will be perpendicular adjustment on that upper idler not seen in the picture.

As far as belt changes, it is already spring loaded. Those two holes are where that whole adjustment assembly mounts. Its a true tool-less belt change. Also that's a 2hp motor on there. Here is another picture with the r&d version of the pretty much the whole thing including the auto-tension system. It sits high to accommodate different diameter idlers we were experimenting with. Its lower profile now. I will also get some more pictures of it indexed.

Keep the drooling material coming!

Here's an old version of our 1x42 3 wheel direct drive using some off the shelf parts. You can see how it has it indexed 45*. The newest version has different diameters and auto tensioning/tool less belt change and more in house designed stuff. This one is at a small radiator/welding shop on loan to put it through its paces. The only thing he didn't like was the old manual belt tensioning system.

That's a Lincoln 1hp motor with a VFD. Laser cut frame. Customer provided the stand. We are actually going in there to test fit some new parts for him.

Awesome grinders -- I've seen your signature a couple of times and wondered what they looked like. It's refreshing to see something different than KMG clones.

Most knife grinders (Burr King, KMG, etc.) have idler wheels crowned 1/16" high in the center (i.e. radius at the center is 1/16" higher than are the edges of the wheel), but the contact wheel is not crowned to prevent the phenomenon you mention (i.e. scalloping the work).

Also, I see a VFD in the last pic, but it appears to be a non-NEMA 4 model (hard to tell -- I could be wrong). Unprotected VFD's are really vulnerable to conductive dust that grinders make. I would strongly recommend upgrading to a NEMA 4/4X (TECO makes nice ones, and the KBAC 24 and 27 series are also really nice with aluminum enclosures). Barring that, you/your customer may least want to put the VFD in a Hoffman box (4 times the volume of the VFD), and consider mounting it out of the line of the grinding dust.

Is there a means to add a work rest to your grinder?

Also, I dig the dust door hinge on the bottom of the dust door. My Burr King 760's have the hinge on the top, which makes it more difficult to leave the door open.

Yea this was setup by the customer. I just supplied sander itself. I would prefer him to move the VFD to the wall and just have the controls themselves in Nema 4 box.

Since that old version, there have been a bunch of accessory holes added to the frames so either we can supply a work rest or we give you the dimensions and you can create whatever you want.

I appreciate everyone's input tho. Without us being a full fledged fabrication shop, its hard to tell what customers want. A lot of features are designed based only off the work we've done in our small shop.

Here is a video of running it today. It was hard to film and work the piece.

For all you electricians - it was a temp hookup.


The final version has a completely enclosed belt drive as well as many minor changes. But the basic design is complete. Ill be headed up to my laser shop Friday to cut out final versions of the frames and motor mounts.

I once was (YEARS ago) farming myself out as a Temp Worker thru a Temporary Agency, while on Lay Off from Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.

The Temp Agency sent me to this place that walked me into a curtained off area, dimly lit by a single light bulb suspended over the 3 x 5 area, where there was a sander about three times bigger than the one pictured here. The belt on it went from 2 inches off the floor, to about 5 1/2 feet (belt was about 2 inches wider than shown here).

In front of the sander, about 10 inches away from the bottom of the angled belt, which angled away at about 30º, was a short metal chair, (no safety shields, guards, etc).

Piled next to the chair were ingots of heavy aluminum bowling ball size and shape, with 6 x 6 nodules (obviously Cast material) that protruded off of one end of the shape about 2 inches.

The fella that took me over to the job location said, "Alls ya gotta do, is sit on that chair there, and grind off those nodules so that all you have left is the round shape."

"Yeah, right!! I don't think so!"

Hey listen; don't get me wrong.........I'll do anything I have to, to make a buck to feed my family. I'm not above working hard; getting dirty. I've done it for YEARS!!
But this...............well.............."this" I didn't need. Not THAT day anyway.

"Awe ****," I said to the guy, "I forgot to turn the lights off on my car. Would you excuse me so I can go turn them off?" ..........

I never came back in.

New color combo. This one is going up as a demo tomorrow right near where I sold one last Friday.



Old color combo