How To Make A Sander For Wood From An Angle Grinder

Making a belt sander from an angle grinder Making a belt sander from an angle grinder with your own hands is not as difficult as it might seem. What features does a belt sander have? What manufacturing techniques are there?

Features

What do you need to know about a belt sander before making it yourself? There are several important criteria that affect the performance and quality of the machine. The main one is power. After all, it is the main component of a homemade car. Devices with high power and high speed are suitable for intensive cleaning of any materials. But the medium speed is useful for surface grinding. An angle grinder with a speed controller will be considered a universal option. In this case, you can independently adjust the rotation speed depending on the degree of processing.

You should also consider the width of the future sanding belt. Depending on it, the dimensions of the driving and driven wheels of the homemade vehicle should be selected. Many tapes are 100 mm wide, but 75 mm wide tapes will also fit for small household needs. And don’t forget about safety. This also applies to the manufacture and use of the device. Welding will be used in the manufacture. Therefore, it is worth working strictly in a protective mask.

What is necessary?

So, before you start making a belt sander from an angle grinder, you need to prepare all the components and tools. For this you will need:

  • The angle grinder itself, which is the basis of the future apparatus;
  • Bolts and nuts;
  • Sheet steel;
  • Springs;
  • Square tubes.

Among the tools you will need:

  • A vice, on which most of the operations for the manufacture of a grinder will be carried out;
  • Drill;
  • A hammer;
  • Welding;
  • Set of wrenches;
  • Roulette.

Making a belt sander out of an angle grinder

how to make a sander for wood from an angle grinder
  1. Features
  2. What is necessary?
  3. How to do it?
  4. How to choose a ribbon?

Sometimes a belt sander is badly needed on the farm. It is an extremely useful tool thanks to which you can sharpen or grind any materials. You can make this machine yourself from an ordinary angle grinder. Such a tool is usually found in every home workshop, and the cost of a small angle grinder is quite low.

We make a grinder from an angle grinder

Many might say that an “angle grinder” is an angle grinder, but there are some subtleties hidden here. It should be borne in mind that the angle grinder has very high revs and is often quite a decent weight. To polish the surface of an angle grinder, you must have considerable experience in this matter and use special polishing discs and wheels. The sander has a much lower engine speed and weight. To work with a factory grinder, no specific experience and skill are required.

It is possible to independently make a good grinding machine out of an angle grinder, which is not inferior in its parameters to a factory machine, only by improving its electrical circuit, by mounting the regulator at lower speeds and by using special grinding nozzles.

Making a grinder from a drill

To turn an ordinary, household electric drill into a grinder, you need to equip it with a special attachment. A working drum or a special support plate, depending on the task.

The backing or sanding pad is a plastic or rubber base with sandpaper glued on and a shank for clamping into a drill chuck. Trays with a flexible shaft are suitable for work with a loose drill, and with a rigid one it is better to use only for a well-fixed drill.

Grinding drums for household drills are structurally a conventional cylinder, a shank and sandpaper glued to the cylinder. When using drums, the working surface of the grinder is parallel to the axis of rotation.

Making a belt sander with your own hands

It is not at all difficult to make a belt sander yourself, you must complete the following steps:

  • Select suitable materials and parts;
  • Make a solid foundation for fixing the tool;
  • Install a suitable countertop;
  • Fix the vertical posts with a tensioner and a drum;
  • Mount the motor and drums;
  • Fasten the sanding tape.

To process fairly large parts and elements, it is necessary to make a large copy of a serial grinder. For example, if you take an electric motor with a power of 2 kW or more powerful with a rotor speed of 1500 rpm, then the gearbox can be omitted. The power of such an engine is enough to rotate a drum about 20 cm in diameter and process parts about 2 m.

You can also use an electric motor from an old washing machine. In this case, the frame is made of a thick sheet of iron, preparing a place for installing the motor and carefully bolting it to eliminate vibration. The design of such a machine consists of 2 drums, one of them is fixed, and the second can be pulled and rotated on bearings around an axis. It is advisable to make the base for the machine from metal or several sheets of thick plywood. The drums are made on a lathe from chipboard. The tape is cut from sandpaper sheets with a width of about 20 cm and fixed on the bed. The larger the table is, the larger the parts can be stacked and processed in the future. Finished product drawings can be found online.

Grinding wood

Wood is a unique material. It can be sanded by hand quite well, but with an angle grinder you can achieve very good results. Some snobs argue that you can’t grind an angle grinder at all, but this is due to ignorance and inability.

The main secret is that the grinder is used at minimum speed. If the angle grinder has a speed switch, then there will be no problem. At high speeds, the sandpaper will clog very quickly and very tightly with wood. In this mode, it will not be enough for five minutes of work. The optimum speed is no more than 6000 rpm.

Another secret is not to sand the entire area of ​​the wheel. If you sand the entire surface, then circular marks will remain on the wood. So that no traces of sandpaper remain at all or they would be minimal, it is necessary to grind only with the upper sector of the circle. The movement of the machine should be along the grain of the wood.

With this method, you can get excellent results when sanding the lining. The board becomes smooth and does not retain tool marks. Do not just get carried away and change the emery pads on the circle in time.

The frame is polished in a similar way. Here, it is desirable that the support plate is thin at the edge. With such a plate, it will be easier to sand narrow joints of logs. Otherwise, this work will have to be finished with a chisel.

We work on concrete

If it was not possible to purchase a branded protective dust cover with a nozzle for a vacuum cleaner, then you can do it yourself. To do this, take a used bucket from under putty or glue with a diameter slightly larger than the circle of an angle grinder. We cut off the bottom part at a height slightly larger than the assembled sanding part.

We cut a hole in the bottom for installation on a gearbox and a hole for a plastic plumbing corner bend. Now we connect the vacuum cleaner hose to the nozzle and work calmly.

The grinding wheel must be suitable for stone processing. Concrete and concrete surfaces are preferably sanded with the entire surface of the wheel. This will save machining time and level the surface well.

When sanding a concrete floor, it is necessary to constantly monitor the plane with a construction ruler, because, due to the different density of concrete, indentations can be made. For the processing of butt joints between concrete fillings, it will be sufficient to achieve one level combination.

Sand concrete floors and surfaces well with a Matrix diamond cup. If the angle grinder is 150 mm, then the cup is 125 mm.

How to make a sander from an angle grinder?

Such a question can be perplexing, because an angle grinder is exactly an angle grinder. But it is very versatile and must be prepared for each operation. To prepare the angle grinder for grinding, you need to purchase a support wheel that fits directly onto the machine shaft.

To process wood, you need to glue an emery cloth on this circle. The number of sandpaper is selected for the immediate moment of work. On sale you can find both a grinding wheel of the required diameter and emery wheels of the appropriate size. Velcro emery wheels are also commercially available, which are very easy and quick to change on the tool.

To convert our angle grinder to concrete grinder, it would be a good decision to purchase a special dust cover. It is good because it has a branch pipe for connecting a vacuum cleaner. Known casings are produced by Hilti. On the cover of this company there is a sliding sector that opens part of the wheel for grinding in the corners.

Grinding metal angle grinder is usually done with standard metal grinding wheels. They have different diameters, different thicknesses and different grains of the grinding surface. But, if you are going to grind an indecently rusted surface, then first you need to brush it over the metal. Such brushes of the required diameters are also on sale.

How to grind an angle grinder different materials

Even if you purchase and install the necessary accessories on your angle grinder, it still means nothing. Processing different materials requires certain knowledge. Without this, it will be difficult to achieve the desired quality.

How to grind an angle grinder

Remember that sanding is always associated with a lot of dust. Do not forget about yourself when preparing for sanding! A face shield and respirator are the best helpers when sanding. You can also find an option where the mask is combined with a good respirator.

The respirator filter will clog up very quickly, so you need to prepare several pieces at once for quick replacement. Only after thorough preparatory work can you start grinding.

Grinding wood

Wood is a unique material. It can be sanded by hand quite well, but with an angle grinder you can achieve very good results. Some snobs argue that you can’t grind an angle grinder at all, but this is due to ignorance and inability.

The main secret is that the grinder is used at minimum speed. If the angle grinder has a speed switch, then there will be no problem. At high speeds, the sandpaper will clog very quickly and very tightly with wood. In this mode, it will not be enough for five minutes of work. The optimum speed is no more than 6000 rpm.

Another secret is not to sand the entire area of ​​the wheel. If you sand the entire surface, then circular marks will remain on the wood. So that no traces of sandpaper remain at all or they would be minimal, it is necessary to grind only with the upper sector of the circle. The movement of the machine should be along the grain of the wood.

With this method, you can get excellent results when sanding the lining. The board becomes smooth and does not retain tool marks. Do not just get carried away and change the emery pads on the circle in time.

The frame is polished in a similar way. Here, it is desirable that the support plate is thin at the edge. With such a plate, it will be easier to sand narrow joints of logs. Otherwise, this work will have to be finished with a chisel.

Hand saw

A hand-held circular saw from an angle grinder is obtained by replacing a standard cutting blade with a wood disc.

True, this option is suitable for short cuts in sheet materials or for cutting thin strips. With long cutting lengths or on thick blocks, there is danger of skewing the disc, jamming it. It will be much easier to hold the saw if the handle is not positioned perpendicular to the axis of the tool, but is made a continuation of the body.

Craftsmen also make a hand chain saw from an angle grinder. True, such a tool is dangerous for the user: the absence of a chain stopper can lead to unpredictable consequences. In addition, the chain is not lubricated, which leads to its rapid wear.

Table circular saw

Sometimes there is a need to change the width of the board or the thickness of the bar. The best option for this kind of work is a circular saw, especially if there are a lot of boards. For cutting boards of small length (1-2 m), the table version of the circular is very useful. It is not necessary to buy such a machine, you can do it yourself from the same angle grinder.

The design of a circular saw is much more complex than a miter saw. The time of contact of the saw blade with wood is quite long, therefore, the reliability of fastening the body of the angle grinder to the bed should be higher.

This is how one of the options for a table circular may look like.

The photo shows that the desktop consists of two planes:

  • The upper table is designed to advance the workpiece;
  • The lower one serves as a stop for the grinder.

The disc passes through a groove in the top surface. If the angle of contact of the two planes is provided with pivoting hinges, then it will be possible to adjust the working height of the saw blade to reduce the area of ​​rubbing surfaces.

The head of the bolt is clearly visible on the upper surface of the table, with the help of which the angle grinder is fixed. Protruding bolt limits the width of the processed board. You can cope with this problem by laying another layer of plywood.

The abutment angle should be as long as possible in order to prevent the board from deviating from the cutting direction. It is better to fasten the corner so that you can change the working distance between it and the disc: then the width of the cut part will also change.

Circular Saw from Conventional Angle Grinder

It is too expensive to have an entire range of electric tools at home. For example, a circular at home is rarely required. Sawing boards can be done with an upgraded angle grinder.