HF drum sander broke (now FIXED), but got lucky!

[leehljp]

I am glad to know your sander drive belts were available. However I am curious, did you ever narrow down WHY the belt broke / melted?

I have re-assembled my HF oscillating spindle sander and it is working fine. I did have a problem along the way, but discovered the cause of the original problem and fixed it in an unorthodox and unscientific manner.


The timing belt had melted. It was rubbing against the bottom retainer ring - a metal ring that apparently is supposed to keeps the belt from jumping off of the timing gear. The metal ring is somewhat sharp. However, there is an idler wheel that in my opinion SHOULD guide the timing belt.


When I put the motor housing, gears and belt back together, I tried it out. Immediately the new belt started rubbing against the metal retainer ring. That wasn’t right. The idler wheel was apparently throwing it off. I couldn’t see or tell the idler gear being off of vertical, but it was causing the belt to run to the bottom of the timing gear and rub against the retaining ring.


I took it back apart. The idler wheel needed to be tweaked. It is plastic on a metal spindle and held on by a spring retaining ring that I could not remove. (I found my retaining ring tool but not the pins ). The idler wheel spindle was mounted on a metal ring held on by 4 screws. I loosened all 4 screws, and I added a washer under one screw, figuring that if all 4 are tightened, it would tweak the idler wheel in the right direction to keep the belt off of the bottom retainer ring. I tightened all 4 screws and the washer forced the distortion of the ring holding the idler wheel in the right direction - by my figuring. I assembled the motor, gear and spindle housing again and gave it a test.


It ran perfectly and the timing belt was running in the center of the gear. I assembled the sander and it is working fine now.

[Relative]

Not only the HF and Grizzly are similar, the Triton TSPS450 and the Shop Fox W1831 have the same parts diagram except for the shape of the cast iron top ... The HF is round the rest have an odd shape, but are identical.

Mike

[Stytooner]

The 1 x 30 belt sanders are the same as well.

[cwsmith]

It's great that you found that Grizzly was a duplicate and you were able to get both parts and the manual.

Perusing the Grizzly catalog every now and then, I've noticed that they have a number of tools that are lookalikes to the HF offerings. A couple of years ago I bought the HF dovetail jig, and the only faults I could find with it were the finish (the comb was very rough with lots of burrs) and the really terrible manual. It took only a few minutes to deburr the comb and I found a much better manual for a lookalike that cost three times as much. At the time, Grizzly offered a similar model too.

CWS

[leehljp]

Thanks! That is it. I downloaded it, and have the Grizzly PDF also.

[Relative]

Is your HF model 61246? If so, I have the manual ... for future reference.

Mike

[leehljp]

I am glad to know your sander drive belts were available. However I am curious, did you ever narrow down WHY the belt broke / melted?

No, I have not figured that out yet. I did look for what happened. The belt was burned from the backside, indicating that it was on backwards or turned over at some point.

As for me, I had been using it for about 1 hour, smoothing down some bandsaw cuts on about 40 - 1x3x2ft by 3/4. I cut 4 small cutouts on each board. I did a good job of cutting on the lines, so all I had to do was basically sand the BS blade marks. No forced sanding, just continuous for about 60+ minutes.

The gear that it fits on is about 1/2 inch thick, but the belt is 1/4 inch and ribbed. I am thinking that something caused it to jump the rib notch and then probably turned over and then burned. The belt is called a timing belt as it is timed for oscillating with the spindle speed.

LOML, decided to stay one more day, so it will be Wednesday before I get the belt and Thursday evening before I can repair it. At that point, I will take a closer look.

[dbhost]

Saw what you will about Harbor Freight's tools, and I agree a good number of them are clean misses. But I have found a good number of the models they produce are identical to, or excruciatingly close to other Chinese imported tools so much so that many if not all of the important components are a direct swap over. Where HF items seem to lack is in the fit and finish department.

I am glad to know your sander drive belts were available. However I am curious, did you ever narrow down WHY the belt broke / melted?

[billwmeyer]

That's a great store. I love going there. Make sure she goes on Saturday because they are closed on Sunday.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Thank you sir!

[leehljp]

Glad to do this:

The Grizzly model G0739 is equivalent to the discontinued HF model.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0739

Parts list is here:

http://cdn0.grizzly.com/partslists/g0739_pl.pdf

the timing belt is part number P0739014 (1/4 inch belt)
the drive belt is P0739013 (3/8 inch belt)

The grizzly model is on sale and there are a couple of other newer model spindle sanders in the catalog. This suggests that this one may be discontinued soon. I have a PDF of the parts list in case I need to order in the future.

I think I could probably order from HF by calling them and giving the HF model number. But because it is discontinued, the PDF is not downloadable from the web site. Since this happened on Friday night, I knew I could not get the customer service center until today (Monday). It worked out better with LOML going to Grizzly. She will be home on Tuesday (instead of Monday) with the parts.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Thanks Hank - great story, glad it worked out. For those of us with the same HF OSC, could you share the Grizzly model, and the Grizzly part number for the belt?

[leehljp]

I am in the middle of building a set of bunk beds for my daughter in Missouri. It has 40 curved slats that needed to be sanded. Pull out the HF Oscillating Drum Sander and go to town. I have had the sander 2 years and only used it a couple of times for a few minutes both times.

Today, I got to number 38 on the slats and it quit oscillating!. I finished the last two without it oscillating. THEN I came inside and looked up HF and wanted to look at the PDF manual. The sander has been discontinued and therefore no PDF to download to look up what might be wrong. Drats!

Look up new sander on HF. Too expensive!
Look on ebay - they have one cheaper - a Grizzly. - Me: Hey, that is the same model as the HF one that I have! I looked at the online parts and then go outside and take the motor assembly off of the sander. I discovered that one of the timing belts had jumped off and melted through.

I came back in and went to Grizzly.com and even found the parts - and they have them in stock in the Springfield, Missouri Grizzly store! $1.50.

BEST PART: LOML went to Springfield yesterday to help our daughter with some weekend work. She is going to go to the store tomorrow (Saturday) and pick up two belts and another small part for my track saw. Total cost will be $6.00 plus tax.

Most of the time, a tool breaks in the middle of a project. I got lucky today, it happened at the end. And finding parts is usually a hit or miss proposition, in my case, it was a HIT. and then to have someone there to get the part, and bring it back to me Monday!

Got lucky today. Doesn't usually happen this way! Had to brag a bit! I am happy.