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Vintage Belt & Disc Sander Restoration
Found this gem last Saturday at my local restore. Dirt cheap: $25 US. It has a solid, super heavy cast iron base and belt table. It took two people to load it into my car.
This unit sold for $319 in 1981, which is about $1176 in today's CPI inflated dollars. Here is a picture of the sander, when new, found on page 13 of Sear's 81/82 tool catalog:
https://archive.org/details/sears-tools-catalog-1981-82/page/13/mode/1up
The front bearings were shot and the motor looked a little crusty. But since I have never had a nice, heavy duty sander like this, I could not resist. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. More to come.
Comments
Great find/buy Bill. There are some good videos on youtube showing how to best remove that rust. I bought my tablesaw off craigslist which had sat in a leaky shed for 30+ years. Its cast iron top was way worse than that. A little elbow grease and now it's served me well for the past 12+ years.
Thanks, Craig. I watched several videos. Most seemed to first buff the rust off with WD-40 and very fine 600 or 400 grit wet type sandpaper. Then cleaned the rusty slurry off with paper towels. Repeated this process 3 or 4 times until all the rust was gone,. Most then applied wax and buffed it out to make the table saw slippery. Think I'll skip the wax part, because any wax on the surface of the sander will probably grind off in the first 10 seconds of operation.
One guy took his table saw completely apart, built a small DIY swimming pool out of an old cardboard box, and then dumped all the cast iron sections into a solution of vinegar and water. Don't think I want to do that.
A tip for cleaning cast iron to help prevent future rusting.
After rust removal (wd40 is great w/wet dry paper). really clean it with lots mineral spirits and lots of paper towel. Keep at it until the towels come away clean.
After that apply some paste wax. Buff out well.
I should add that heating the first 1-3 applications of wax helps tremendously. Use a hair drier to just liquify the wax and wipe. You will probably see gray on the paper towel. Repeat until the paper comes away clean and it will last for years.
I have that exact sander sans stand. It's nice!
You sure seem to find some great stuff, Bill. I haven't been in our Restore in years, but they never had any electronics or decent tools.
I bet that motor could be serviced easy enough and or find a replacement.
Probably just a good douche with some air and should be fine...maybe
KROIL is fabulous for rust removal and smells nice too.
Kroil is great lube for your pocket knife as well.
Bill, I too have that same sander. I would highly recommend you get the biggest motor you can find. Tim Taylor the crap out of that thing.
Thanks guys! Lots of great tips! Keep them coming. I gave the cast iron surface some fine grit wet sanding/cleaning applications using Super Tech penetrating lubricant, mineral spirits, and paper towels. I think this Super Tech stuff is the same as WD-40, except it is sold at about half the price by Walmart. Seemed to work pretty good, removed most of the rust. The grinding and swirling marks in the photos did not come from my sanding/cleaning work. These marks were already there, underneath the rust, caused by years and years of sanding belt friction. Looks like I need to perform a few more sanding/cleaning operations to get it all.
It's funny. I initially began stopping at re-stores in my area a few years ago looking for wood. But I could never find anything decent. But as I was walking around, I kept stumbling onto cool electronics and tools. Maybe it is just dumb luck on my part, I don't know. But one thing I do know is that when I stumble onto a really good find, if I don't buy it immediately, it is usually gone when I stop back 1 week later.
Ya, I blew the dust out with my air hose. Plugged it in without the belt attached and it spins up good with lots of torque. Sounds like it could use some lubrication on the main bearings.
I did a google search on KROIL. That must be the "premo" stuff for this type of work. It seems to be fairly expensive compared to WD-40 or Super Tech penetrating lubricant.
The motor has capacitor start, probably a polyproplyene type. 3/4 HP. Might be a little wimpy for grinding out huge baffle diffraction roundovers.
Start capacitors like on your motor, are almost always electrolytic. Run caps are poly.
I ran my sander with a split phase blower motor around 1/3 hp for years. No caps on those. I doubt your motor will complain.
The semi circular grooves are from initial machining. These things were pretty roughly ground from the factory.
The straighter lines are from use, as is the more polished portions.
Don't skip the mineral spirits and wax. The wax isn't so much for lubrication in this case, but for rust prevention. Cast iron is very porous metal, the wax fills the pores helps to seal out moisture.
Thanks, Bob. Excellent tips. I'll be sure to do both the mineral spirits and wax. I was going to skip the wax because I figured it would just be scraped off by the sanding belt. But as you indicate, that is not true. I'll be keeping this thing in the basement, so I need all the rust prevention I can get. I also keep a dehumidier cycling on and off to keep my basement dry, but the humidity level is always about 10% higher than upstairs.
I was going to skip checking the motor capacitor because I thought, in error, that they were probably poly's, which basically last forever. I'll be sure to pop the cover and test the electrolytic for leakage and replace as necessary. Thanks again for the excellent tips!
Jantzen Superior
Glad you found it helpful!