harbor freight belt sander cheap

admin

I just got an email from HF with a sale flyer that has their 4 by 36 belt sander and 6 inch disc combo for 59 bucks. My next project was going to be building a nice belt sander but thinking about getting one of these for now and putting off building my own. It has good reviews. I know it wont last forever but seems like a good deal. Just wondering if anyone has this machine or if you think it would be OK to clean up metal and bevel edges. The model number is 93981.
Reply:You get what you pay for.  Like many Harbor Freight tools, if you don't mind modifying it right out of the box, it is halfway decent.  The motor on it is crap, and the table is crap.  Throw the stamped base plate away, and bolt it to a table with a real 1/2 horse motor, and fabricate a new table, and you have a halfway decent machine.  I ended up with it (used, and nonworking, as the motor is crap) for virtually nothing.  The motor was already to the point that it couldn't even start itself (if you got the shaft spinning by hand, it would spin itself).  After I modified it, it is somewhat decent, and I lightly use it on a daily basis, mostly for deburring, and rounding corners off on .063 - .125 aluminum.I think the disk sander part is somewhere in the scrap pile too.Who is John Galt?
Reply:I have a 1x30" belt sander from HF.  I only use it for finish grinding on tungstens.  Sometimes I have to grab the belt and give it a pull to get it spinning...It has a 5 or 6" disk on it too.  It bogs when I look at it, or use harsh language with it.   When I'm hot, dirty, and tired, I yell at it and it pees itself.  I think I paid $20 for it, so I'm happy.For polishing tungstens to get any grinding marks parallel to the point.  It's fine.  For anything else, a hand file is faster and more reliable.I would assume the same for any larger version of belt/disk grinder.  The HF bandsaw I have is barely tolerable.  But I have little room to complain considering what I paid for it.  I'm awaiting the day when the chinese piece of crap motor bursts into flames or the worm drive explodes.  Then I'll invest in a better class of tool...in the meantime I'm trying to make the last blade I bought last until the saw commits hari-cari.Benson's Mobile Welding - Dayton, OH metro area - AWS Certified Welding Inspector
Reply:I've got the same 4 x 36 w/ 6" dia sander.  It was my dad's so it has to be at least 25 years old.While it is a cheaply made tool it has lasted a long time.  I use it infrequently for the little garage projects I do.  Seems to work OK.Cons....Belt flops against the belt guard...sounds terrible.Roller tensioners need shims / washers to work right.Push/pull switch is awkward and poorly located.Table for disk sander is cheap and hard to position.Pros..It sands stuff pretty good (but I've never used a quality belt sander so ???)It's so cheap you can abuse the hell out of it and you won't care a bit.You'll probably get more than $60 worth of use out of it so I'd say get it.Miller 211 w/ spool gunMiller Dynasty 200DXLongevity 60i IGBT plasmaO/A w/ crappy chinese torch/gaugesSouth Bend 10K latheGrizzly 4029 10x54 millGrizzly 7x12 hor bandsawangle grnders, bench grnder, bench belt sndr7.5 hp 80gal cmprsor
Reply:i got the 4x36" belt/6" disc sander last year on sale for 49.99. with a 20% off it was well worth it. i use it for grinding metal and it is still going strong. good buy
Reply:Bought the 1"X30" belt sander, seems ok for home shop use. Handle for the shaft that adjusts the table angle didn't fit right out of the box. The splines in the handle were bigger than the splines on the shaft. Called HF and they sent a new one - it didn't fit either. Oh well, a piece of 1/2" aluminum drilled and tapped one end and longer than the original with a t handle fixed it.Got the 3"X21" belt sander also- replaced the Craftsman 3"X18" that died with not a lot of use.  Seems OK, time will tell. (The Craftsman had the front roller made of plastic and it melted!).Got them both on sale, as I usually wait for their sales to buy anything. Have the 4", 7" and 9" grinders, they have held up pretty well over the years.Latest purchase was the Storehouse (67421) 11 drawer tool box. Bought two sets on sale for $149 each. Would they stand up to daily use by a busy mechanic, probably not. But for what I bought them for - small parts, tools, etc for the reloading bench and the clock making/jewelry benches, they are ok. Not built like my Kennedy and old Craftsman, but then most of them aren't.
Reply:I picked up an old (more that 15 years old) HF 4x36 belt sander off of Craigslist for $10.  It needed a couple of parts and so I contacted HF customer service.  The model was obsolete, having been replaced by newer models but the CS rep was able to cross reference and find what I needed.  The replacement parts where surprisingly inexpensive.  Actually I was astounded ot how inexpensive the parts were.  I repair a lot of old electrical tools as a hobby and my main source of parts is ereplacementparts.com.  They have the best service and the best prices of any place I've found.  Yet when it comes to replacing parts for HF's Central Machinery tools, Harbor Freight's service is as good and the prices it charges for parts are a fraction of the cost of other manufacturers.  I'd expect to pay 5-10 times the price for comparable parts for Skill, Milwaukee, Porter-Cable, Makita, etc. than I paid for the HF Central Machinery tool parts.  Surprised the heck out of me especially once I had the sander running.  It  does a decent job.