So I have been on the hunt for a sander for a while. This guy came up on the CL not to far from where I work in Vermont. Called the guy up told him I wanted to take a look at it and was interested. He said I could come take a look at it. He then started to give me a bit of a tale of woe. That his wife posted the wrong price for it and yadda yadda yadda. Anyway I was in Toronto and said his other asking price was fair but was to rich for my blood right now. So I passed on it. A few days later he called me up and told me that he still had it and would be willing to let it go for the original price.
So off I went. Actually it worked out that I had to work that day in VT so it made for a longish day in the car. When I got to meet Mike (seller) he ended up being a really great guy. Talked shop for a bit and got to see the place he worked at. I won't say where but its a large steel plant in VT. I'll leave it at that. checked out the sander. Found out it was basically plug and play. Single phase ran like a dream. Made some dust. Shook on it and kindly enough one of the shop guys loaded it into the truck with one of their forklifts. Off to work I went. Finally got home around 9 pm. got it unloaded and into the studio and called it a day. Now i had to figure out where it was going to go. After some serious consideration on tool placement, some long discussions with my brother and finally a plan of action. Pretty much everything in my small studio got moved....again... next investment. pallet jack...anyway. Pictures.
So this is where I spent my time for the most part today. Getting the tables back in good shape and functioning. I don't plan a full restore at this time on the sander as I need to be doing other things in the studio like make work and finish the WT bandsaw. Then sander time. That being said I need it to run. Where ever the sander came from prior to Mike selling it to me is a question I will probably never get answered but they managed to paint every flippin' part of it bright orange obviously and with house paint I think. The good thing is that it pretty much just scrapes off with a small amount of work.
Right now as I said before it just needs to run well. Full restore is for another day. So I dug into it a small amount. Finding for once that this machine has been really well taken care of (other than the paint). The guts were surprisingly great! new belt, and almost new bearings in both the motor and the belt and disk assembly drive shaft. I'm ordering new bearings tomorrow for the restore in the future. As of right now I am just going to make dust...
Although here are a lot of photos of the tables being taken apart and put back together.
Belt table:
The thing was literally painted shut. Seems like a small amount of work from the pics but it was a pain in the butt to get apart clean and now. It's smooth and dreamy!
Man... You scored nicely on the edge guide... Only way to beat it would be to have a second table for it too...
I did the complete tear down/restore on mine, which required buying a complete second machine to get all the needed parts... It had been sitting outside for some time, and it was rusted solid in places... At the same time I solved the tracking issue with my prior sander, and as a result never actually wired the Powermatic... Its sitting in the back, doing nothing... I guess I really ought to finish that up and move along the import to a new happy home... I did just score a new 2 horse 3 phase motor that would likely fit in there nicely... Perhaps that will be a January project...
Thanks Tim! Im looking forward to using it hopefully tonight. ordered disks and belts from Klingspor and they should get here today. I'm not around the shop till this evening. Hopefully i get to use it to crown the bandsaw tires and get it back together this evening also.
I was really excited about the edge guide. When I saw the listing there were no pics of it and it just said Powermatic combo sander. So I figured what the heck I'll give the guy a call. When I saw it was basically complete and it fired right up I was sold. Just biting back the smile was tough.
I am looking forward to the rebuild though. Probably not till the spring though. I don't have the ability to spray in my small studio so its and outside kinda deal and then they get hung inside till the paint cures. There are other things on the hunting list but I do have my eyes out for a second table tool. I don't mind the swap though right now.
Good luck on the second table... They do come up, but it was faster and in fact cheaper (if I ignore driving to Baltimore to get it) for me to buy the complete second machine to get one, and then part the rest out to other folks... As a result mine is a mix of the round corner cabinet like yours and a later square corner... Went with the metallic green rather than the pea green when I did the paint...
