In this video I am adding a steel plate to the top of the existing plastic deck on my Ridgid Oscillating Belt and Drum Sander. I have purchased a plate of 10 gauge, mild steel and had it cut the appropriate size and now the real work begins.
I will be drilling holes large enough to accommodate the belt sanding mechanism, which will also mean all the drums will work as well on the sander. The big PLUS for me is that with this added feature to the sander I can now build and use a variety of new jigs for this sander and use Magswitch Technology instead of wood clamps to get quick, super solid positioning with all my jigs.
To Start off with I decided to make a full size plan of the deck using some flip chart paper with squares already printed on it. The purpose of this was to be able to make the slot hole for the belt mechanism in the appropriate place and to be able to drill the large holes in the correct area. I needed to get this right the first time and not have a lot of grinding of steel after as I am not really set up for that kind of heavy duty grinding.
The video tells shows the overall work.
Below are the 1/4 inch flat head screws I used and with the correct countersinking bit, so that the screws went inserted and tightened on the deck will sit flush on the top.
Below is the finished steel deck with the custom dust collector on the side. These belt sanders do have a dust collection port at the back of the saw which I found to be quite ineffective. This design, submitted by one of the my SUBSCRIBERS is a great idea and solves the dust problem very nicely. The only real problem I found is that with only the plastic top, you have only one place you can position this dust port, which works ok, but I found is often either in way, or not picking up the dust as well as it could.
Below is the detail of the back of the dust port. As you an see I am using a couple of Magswitch #60, they are only holding a dust collection attachment so don't need to be super strong, (for most other tools and jigs I use the #150s)
This whole steel top upgrade is worth it if for nothing else, to be able to control where the dust collection chute can be easily re-positioned anywhere on around the belt or drum sanding units, and thereby keep out of the way of what is being sanded while still being very effective.
One of the MagTool units I use often is the Featherboard, with built in Magswitches (it also has a bonus stop on the end, you can see in the picture the 2 round things sticking out from the back) this is very handy, and sometimes necessary jig on the table saw, but now I can also use it on this sander for light sanding or even thicknessing thin pieces of wood like Inlay or Banding pieces or ... what-have-you ...
Anyone who has these sanders know the belt travels up and down slightly as well and in some cases you may need a hold-down to prevent small pieces from lifting above the feather board, and also helps to facilitate thickness sanding by holding the wood to the top of the sander. This Vertical Featherboard is a perfect accessory especially for this sander.
I am looking forward to more use from this sander, now that I can finally create some new jigs that can be used on it for a variety of different functions ... I have a couple in mind and will get to those in upcoming weeks.
Colin Knecht
woodworkweb
