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I just bought a 21" x 3" hand belt sander at a great price. I've always wanted one, but I am fearing that it is a little overkill for guitar building. Anyone have any thoughts before I actually use it? It would be used mainly for cleaning up where the body wings join the neck in through neck guitars, and for things of that nature.

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y'know what, I've been looking around for a belt sander the last few days for working on figured woods when a plane is causing tearout & varoius other bits & pieces. I just popped on here to search through the posts for belt sanders...what are the chances eh?

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Funny, this came up today. I just went out to rockler, I always knew this store was close, but never would go out there, they had a lot of cool stuff. Anyhow, I wanted something to the effect you guys are talking about for figured woods and saw a microplane which goes in a drill press, but decided against that because the tearout would probably be very bad. What I did buy was basically a small drum sanding kit with different sized drum sanders and sold separately they had template followers that sit above or below the drum and can be used to follow a template. For sanding the inside of wings on a neck through I'd imagine this type of sanding to be much better than a belt sander. You just stick it in the drill press. There is also a luthier that makes a similar but probably better version of the drum sanders called the robo sanders I think, they sell them on LMI. I am actually going to grab some to see how they work, but grabbed these other ones as they were on sale for cheap and needed some. With the different sizes available they can be used for almost anything to smooth or even take off some thickness. Anyhow I think they sound great and I know a few people here use them. I think the site is Luthiers Friend. Sounds good to me and might help a lot. J

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I use my belt sander for shaping bodies along with my drill press + drum sander for the spots the belt sander cannot reach. I safely mount the belt sander on it's side on a piece of scrap wood using 2 Irwin clamps. Place the clamps correctly so you aren't effecting the tools performance. I then make sure I have a good 90 angle between the scrap piece and the belt sander to assure I will have nice flat sides. After roughing out the body with the bandsaw, I take it to the belt sander (again, safely mounted) and slowly work it into shape using 120 grit sandpaper - NO MORE NO LESS. I get beautiful results on curves, although the hard to reach spots don't feel so great, this is where the drill press drum sanding attachment comes into play. After I get it decently smooth, I continue to finish the body shape with 100 grit sandpaper in a hard rubber block. I'd be more than happy to take pictures of how I do this if anyone is interested.

This is all for custom work for my own designs. If you're looking to do a precise copy of a guitar, stick with the template + router method. Unless of course you want to modify something, you'll have complete control over the curves using a belt sander, this is one of my favorite parts in guitar building. I also use this method for plexi-glass.

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That's the kind of setup I was looking for Jon. I can't stretch to much but the Skil sanders seem quite reasonable, they have micro-filter dust collection, non-dig in bases, auto tracking & can be table mounted. I've got a drum sander set but they're very messy & are a bit of a one-trick pony.

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What do you have for a belt sander as in size and brand, Jon? Sounds like a nice easy process you got and it sounds like I need a new belt sander, lol. When you get a chance I would definately like to see how you set it up as it sounds good to me and will save time over drum sanding the whole edge. I'm sure I could come up with some way to get the 90 but it would be great to see how you do this to save some trial and error on my part. No rush, just when you get the chance, I am about to get my band saw here, so I might have to hold off on a new belt sander. Just out of curiousity would you personally prefer the belt sander say over an oscillating sander. For my recent design a belt would be better as it has straight sides and could get a lot of surface contact from the belt, but a nice curvy guitar doesn't seem like it would get much more surface contact on a belt than an oscillating spindle sander, or would it? I think the belt would have many more purposes for me in general, but the oscillating might be better for specific guitar applications. Anyhow, thanks for the info Jon, sounds like a cool setup!

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Drum sanders are very messy set up without a vacuum - if you're able to get a vacuum system worked in with the drill press or drill it will really help. But I probably use the drum sander for 2 minutes tops on an entire body, the only sections I hit are the leg rest area and the tummy carve area. The extended reach treble horn is done with a forstner bit before I bandsaw cut it out, good idea on my dads part. :D Was one of the things I hated about shaping a body, that area was always a pita.

Project707.jpg

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What do you have for a belt sander as in size and brand, Jon? Sounds like a nice easy process you got and it sounds like I need a new belt sander, lol. When you get a chance I would definately like to see how you set it up as it sounds good to me and will save time over drum sanding the whole edge. I'm sure I could come up with some way to get the 90 but it would be great to see how you do this to save some trial and error on my part. No rush, just when you get the chance, I am about to get my band saw here, so I might have to hold off on a new belt sander. Just out of curiousity would you personally prefer the belt sander say over an oscillating sander. For my recent design a belt would be better as it has straight sides and could get a lot of surface contact from the belt, but a nice curvy guitar doesn't seem like it would get much more surface contact on a belt than an oscillating spindle sander, or would it? I think the belt would have many more purposes for me in general, but the oscillating might be better for specific guitar applications. Anyhow, thanks for the info Jon, sounds like a cool setup!

Makita - no idea on size. Guessing 10-14" x 5". The smaller the better so you can work more of the body without having to use a drum sander. I'm definitely looking into getting a more powerful belt sander for this purpose alone.

I'll get you pictures tomorrow, it's late here! My setup is intended for curves in every way. If I'm doing anything that requires having something straight, the belt sander will not accomplish this. I'll use a router and some type of straight piece of hard wood. I'll have examples of how I do this as well in the future when I complete the project (it's a secret!). Originally, I refused to use a belt sander because I wanted to get an oscillating sander. I thought it was a stupid idea to use a belt sander because it was not powerful and flat. Basically, I was thinking along the lines of "Something flat creating something with curves?! Blasphemers!!1". A bit of experimenting and a little finesse created my favorite step in the body making process.

I've shaped quite a few things on a belt sander, getting them flat is not something mine will do. Curves, however, I have complete control over.

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Thanks for the great info! No, rush on those pics just when you get a chance and again thanks. I wanted to use a router on my design being that it is all flat sides, but I just don't want to run into some nasty tearout as it will be basically all figured wood. Once, I feel that I have put enough hours in on the router maybe, but even then I see experienced people get tearout and if I am routing down to the actual shape and size that would be a rough time for tearout. We'll see though, I am definately interested in your setup as it sounds cool, part of the reason I went looking for sanders was to avoid routing a body shape, I can't tell you how many bodies I've seen tearout on in this process since I've been here. No doubt almost all turned out fine with some adjustment and extra sanding, but I would just prefer to avoid all of that, cavities don't bug me, I do fine on those. Thanks again Jon. J

PS: That pic is very cool and a great idea. I didn't know exactly what I was looking at right away, then I saw the little forstner hole in the lower horn area and realized what it was, a great idea, to avoid a tough area.

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Agreed, it has saved me a great deal of time and worry. Especially since forstner bits range in size, I can fit anything in there.

Sand very close to size and use multiple passes with the router. For the "secret" project I was mentioning, I did it all with a router, all straight sides. 14 sides sides total and going about 6-8 passes per side. ZERO tearout. It did take about 3 hours for a very simple procedure, but it came out great. Once again, patience is key.

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Thanks for all the input guys, but I'm not sure all of you realize that I was talking about a handheld beltsander, not a stationary one! Anyways, I am thinking about looking into one that is a little smaller than 21" now after reading some of this, but maybe I can make do with this one. Its pretty heavy duty, and the sides are square so I could toss it in a vise and use it as a table mounted belt sander too!

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FWIW, I think we are all talking about a handheld belt sander...I know I am. The advantage is that they can be clamped down for bench top use too.

I found this: http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProductGuide...?ProductID=9758

If you can ignore the tacky appearance it actually looks like it could be quite useful for cleaning up edges when clamped down at 90 degrees. When the front flap is folded back it would allow some very tight radius sanding that would rival a drum sander.

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FWIW, I think we are all talking about a handheld belt sander...I know I am. The advantage is that they can be clamped down for bench top use too.

I found this: http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProductGuide...?ProductID=9758

If you can ignore the tacky appearance it actually looks like it could be quite useful for cleaning up edges when clamped down at 90 degrees. When the front flap is folded back it would allow some very tight radius sanding that would rival a drum sander.

Nice Catch Bilious! That optional open/close end part is a great idea for many different things even besides guitars. Not bad price at all either. And as you said, I am pretty sure we all were speaking about hand sanders as those are the only ones that I think you can clamp down. It's possible that bringing up the oscillating sander was confusing. I guess I will have to get a new sander and give this method a try.

I'm curious as to how powerful your current sander is Jon, just so when I buy something that I am getting what I need and won't want more or less later. Thanks for all the info everyone, and again nice catch on that belt sander Bilious, that definately looks luthieryish, lol.

Edited by jmrentis
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billious, thats funny, i actually originally bought that sander on an impulse buy last week. i took it home then did some research on it and found that people were having major issues with the belt tracking. i ended up returning it and found a ryobi on sale that was a little more, and had variable speeds and was way more heavy duty. i just got back from jury duty, so i have the rest of the day off to work on guitars! ill let everyone know how my sander works out by tonight. im off!

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Yes, this is regarding a handheld belt sander. A stationary one would be useless to me for body shaping, unless it is mounted on it's side (which I have never seen).

I'm afraid my workshop is too messy to show an example of how I shape my bodies exactly, but I can still give you an idea. Here are the clamps I use to hold down the ends of the belt sander - I prefer these because they're very easy to adjust and have cushioned ends. It's easier to adjust the belt sander to have a perfect 90 degree angle with them thanks to the cushioned ends rather than using a bar clamp or a parallel jaw clamp (all hard ends).

th_Clamps.jpg

Next I would mount the belt sander with the clamps to my workbench or piece of scrap wood, the scrap wood would be clamped down. The extra space infront of the belt sander is where the body would be placed to be worked into shape. I am always moving the body against the belt sander, probably about 2-3 inches per second. This motion is a lot like doing a roundover on a body using a benchtop router. Leaving the project in place might result in burn marks or a not so flat side that will require more work to shape it back into a curve. You can use many tools to get the correct 90 degree angle, I couldn't find my square so I used one of my rulers - I also use this tool to get my table saw blade squared off for jointing. I'd love to video myself to show an example of how I do this, maybe in the future when I can borrow a friends camera.

th_BeltSander1.jpgth_BeltSander2.jpg

Please note that the sandpaper can slowly drift downward into your scrap wood / workbench. Originally I was using this idea on the extended sides of my table saw, and it cut into the metal table. So be careful where you do this! I recommend routing two lines on the scrap wood so this wont be an issue. I'll eventually work this into a mobile benchtop jig, kind of like a benchtop router.

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Jon, thats a great set up. I'll have to get some of those squeeze clamps so I can do that too!

I just got done doing some work. I used the sander to do the carving on the top and sides, it worked incredibly well. Later this week or next week I will post pictures in the two threads I have going for these guitars. I also got my bookmatched top jointed and glued! Thanks everyone!

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Hand held belt sanders

For a body the smaller the better and I do believe Porter cable makes a single hand held model now, slightly larger than a random orbit sander. If its just you dont feel a palm sander is fast enough this may work for you.

But if its removing wood in quantity a 3" x 21" is the standard choice and size. Just make sure you dont buy belts from Harbor Freight, my belts lasted all of 1 minute before the glue failed and the belt separated. I was not working on guitars at the time. If you need to hog off wood buy zirconia belts. the minimum grit I would recommend is 60 any lower and you will be sanding forever to remove the marks, 80 grit would be a better choice for general leveling.

The best you can do with a belt sander it take off enough wood to get you where you need to be to do a good final leveling job and finish sanding using other tools. The other issue is you must be in constant motion using a belt sander. Its not hard to master a belt sander just remember its a wood eating monster dont stop or it keeps eating and dont work across the grain. Dust collection is helpful unless you dont mind dust clouds. The newest belt sander craze is a lower center of gravity motor, but if your on a budget than forget it.

A 4" x 24" is overkill for instrument work.

I hope this info helps

Woodenspoke

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Great advice again. I'd like to stress that Harbor Freight makes crappy sanding belts. My dad bought a pack of 3-6 and he said they would bust after he started using them. Definitely use dust collection, you'll be taking whatever material off extremely fast. Which is why I recommend 120, one wrong slip with the lower grits and you're in trouble! Not to mention the grit marks that all of them leave will be relatively deep, with 120 the cleanup wont take too long. Although it will still leave deep grit marks because it is not oscillating. To make your sandpaper last whether it be a beltsander or drum sander attachment for your drill / drillpress, go for one of these from Harbor Freight. Just the small use from today has already paid itself off. It really sharpened my sandpaper up a great deal.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=30766

I have been designing a 7-string guitar with my friend, we just got done making templates. About 90% of the template (plexi-glass) was shaped with the belt-sander with the rest shaped on the drill press with a drum sanding attachment. No hand work was needed thanks to the sanding belt cleaner.

Jewish7-3.jpg

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Great advice again. I'd like to stress that Harbor Freight makes crappy sanding belts. My dad bought a pack of 3-6 and he said they would bust after he started using them. Definitely use dust collection, you'll be taking whatever material off extremely fast. Which is why I recommend 120, one wrong slip with the lower grits and you're in trouble! Not to mention the grit marks that all of them leave will be relatively deep, with 120 the cleanup wont take too long. Although it will still leave deep grit marks because it is not oscillating. To make your sandpaper last whether it be a beltsander or drum sander attachment for your drill / drillpress, go for one of these from Harbor Freight. Just the small use from today has already paid itself off. It really sharpened my sandpaper up a great deal.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=30766

I have been designing a 7-string guitar with my friend, we just got done making templates. About 90% of the template (plexi-glass) was shaped with the belt-sander with the rest shaped on the drill press with a drum sanding attachment. No hand work was needed thanks to the sanding belt cleaner.

Its always good to have the rubber block on hand to extend the life of any belt. Thanks for the link Jon never saw a block that cheap before. These rubber blocks last forever so dont buy too many (like one).

The 120 grit is fine if you are doing minimal stock removal but if you want to remove wood in a hurry stick to 60 or 80 grit. You always have to weigh in on many factors when choosing a belt. My reference grits were for fast stock removal, and if that wasn't your intention, Jon is right then go with 120 but not finer. You may also have to start with a course grit to remove the marks when using your finishing sander (or block) so take that into account as additional work.

Nice pattern by the way Jon, belt sander who would have believed it could be done. One note I do not use plexi due to its high cost but use 1/2" MDF and then epoxy the edges it helps harden the MDF and fill any of those you know "mistakes" no one ever makes. Plus my guide bearings on my router's pattern bit has a larger area to run on, and you can always add more epoxy to touch it up.

Woodenspoke

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I don't recommend plexi-glass - it's costly, relatively hard to work with (much different than wood) and can break very easily. Stick with MDF or fine grade plywood for templates. I'm only using plexi-glass because my dad got a good 100-200 sheets about 10 years ago. I believe he has used 2 sheets over that time period, so I'm just saving money.

My workshop is almost completed with all of the organization. I'll be designing a jig to fit the belt sander for you guys, because I really do recommend the method. It's a lot of fun and very easy to get precise work out of the belt sander.

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You guys rock! :D Thanks for all the great info both Jon and Woodenspoke, it is greatly appreciated. Before I had ever made it to Harbor freigths I was told about certain things not to buy there, sandpaper being one. I have my template rough cut in MDF and just needs a little sanding, might be best off with the drum, just because I cut if very close and doesn't need much taken off, the belts I have are fairly course, so if I did I would go grab some finer ones to clean it up as woodenspoke mentioned. I'm totally down to see your jig setup Jon, sounds like a great help. I'm glad this thread has offered so much, I am disabled and the less hours of hard labor I can avoid the better. Also, neat tip on the MDF templates Woodenspoke, I can see how that would be extremely helpful. Jay

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My Skil belt sander arrived this morning just in time for the bank holiday weekend :D It's not the model that I originally wanted but it has most of the same features...something that I didn't realise is that it has a belt cleaner build in, it's basically a shaped piece of rubber like the large ones which is easily replaced & comes with 3 spare's. It also came with 5 spare belts which is annoying as I bought 2x10 packs to go with it but I'm sure they'll get some use. The top section is is shaped in an inverted "T" so that it can be clamped into a workmate easily, quite a nice feature too I thought.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_...le=1&jump=4

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My Skil belt sander arrived this morning just in time for the bank holiday weekend :D It's not the model that I originally wanted but it has most of the same features...something that I didn't realise is that it has a belt cleaner build in, it's basically a shaped piece of rubber like the large ones which is easily replaced & comes with 3 spare's. It also came with 5 spare belts which is annoying as I bought 2x10 packs to go with it but I'm sure they'll get some use. The top section is is shaped in an inverted "T" so that it can be clamped into a workmate easily, quite a nice feature too I thought.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_...le=1&jump=4

I dont think my Porter Cable can be clamped to anything so you lucked out with the skill.

Jon 100-200 sheets of plexi. If your talking about 4 x 8 hey sell it on eBay (pickup only) and then buy some wood for your projects.

Tell your dad there was an accident with a heat gun and it melted. Just messing around. Thats a lot of plexi even if it isn't a full sheet. If it's 1/4 inch your set for template life. If you use pattern bits in your router as I do(a large bit) then 1/8 is a tad thin for the bearing to ride along safely.

Yes a drum sander is easier to control and if its for doing the side of a body thats the way to go. If you can splurge on one with a bottom guide you can save a lot of grief and make a template like Jon did, then its just making sure you contact the template with the disk sander guide no real skill needed, Ok a little skill. Its the template you have to take time to make. Dont forget double sided tape made for holding wood to a template would help.

Woodenspoke

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