I just finished gluing up a maple desktop the other night; the desktop is 2’ x 5’ x 1” and I was planning on sending it through the Widebelt Sander a few times to flatten it. I should only need to take off about 1/32” or less.
I know there has been some recent talk around the widebelt sander and hard or improper use causing some downtime, and I don’t want to contribute to that. I’m pretty comfortable running cutting boards through it but never anything as large as this.
I was planning on bringing in a guest to help me handle the desktop, and to use a roller stand or two on the infeed side to support it as it feeds in and we reposition to catch the piece.
I know to only advance the height of the table by one step at a time, and to keep an eye on the amperage gauge.
I’d love any advice or feedback around running larger pieces through the WBS. Is this a good plan? Any other gotchas I should look out for?
Well, 1/32”? That’s not a lot of material to remove. The sander is setup to take five thousands in one pass which if my foreign accent math is correct is about half of that. In other words you may only get to practice once and if you happen to be correct you may go up to three practices. If you can feed it a little at an angle initially, it should reduce the load on the motor and then run it straight up with the grain a couple of times without changing or tapping the height. So, if the settings have not changed on the machine since last night, lower the table until you can place your stock in the automatic gauge, then press the “up” arrow until stops, then tap the down arrow three times allowing the machine to adjust. In other words tap arrow once wait for the number to go up by five and repeat the process two more times. You should be able to be right at what you need or creep up to that. Here is a very good refresher video if you need to clear up the process.
Yeah, I tried to get everything as close as possible with the planer and some careful gluing, so I didn’t have to spend all day running it through the WBS. I’ll probably end up having to take off a little more than that.
Thanks for the refresher and tips! I’ve run a bunch of smaller boards though no problem, just never anything as big as this.
However, after setting the thickness via the automatic gauge, I stepped the table down 4 times and it still took a heavier-than-normal cut the first time through. I’m not sure what is changing but that automatic gauge is misleading, and could cause some really aggressive first passes if one didn’t manually back it off first.
I guess a safer approach would be to lower the table until you can put your stock through freely through the rollers and then start tapping up until the sandpaper starts touching the stock. If it helps, the sandpaper head/roller is in line with the front and back rollers. So if the rollers are engaging your stock chances are you’re set. I say chances because in some areas (around the center) there is some kind of plastic or resin stuck to the rollers that prevents them from being smooth. The pressure switch or thickness gauge for some reason is not staying constant. Last Saturday, myself and Jeff McAdams set it dead on and by Wednesday when I gave a class, it was off again. There are users that change the settings (even though it is not allowed) to suit what they’re doing and when finished, they just walk away without resetting machines back to neutral making it harder for other users that are not that experienced or follow the rules.
It’s frustrating to hear that the machine is still drifting out of adjustment. We spent most of the morning on the 10th performing maintenance and calibration on it, so it’s surprising to see that much change. Barring an electrical issue or fault in the circuitry, the thickness setting would need to be adjusted manually.
It’s possible that someone may not be fully familiar with the correct operating procedure. Once it’s set again, I’ll secure the plexiglass guard with tape all the way around to help prevent unintended adjustments going forward.