Best belt sander reviews: handheld, small, benchtop and floor sanders

Long time ago I bought both belt and sheet sanders. The sheet device was replaced few times, but the belt one worked flawlessly. And finally, when my 20 year old belt sander (it seems to be Skill) gave up, I was wondering should I replace it with a small and cheap device or something better and may be heavier. I will share here some thoughts and the results of my search for the best belt sander on the market.

Best Belt Sander Under $100

All you need to know about inexpensive sanders is motor torque. Small sanders for DIY tasks with low power motors are very easy to stop with a piece of steel pressing to the belt. These devices are good enough for cleaning a bit of rust, deburring, etc.

Cheap sanders can sand well, but you really need to keep them clean and lubricate from time to time with some dry lubricant. If you let them build up with dust, the belt begins to walk off running it. In this way for light DIY and all purpose work you can use almost any tool. But wide-known brands such as Bosh and Dewalt will almost never let you down.

My advice here is KKmoon multifunctional machine for DIY projects. This little machine works well with what it was designed for – simple sanding and grinding tasks. It is small enough for limited work space. The sander hasn’t tracking feature to keep a strop centered, so this is not the device for knife making. But KKmoon has multiple speeds and reversible belt direction.

Small belt sander: my recommendation

Many of my colleagues think their sanders are too heavy, but I think that is an asset. I just let the weight of the machine work for me instead of bearing down on the sander. So the weight and balance are essential.

The tool needs to be heavy enough to just concentrate on guiding the sander and not pushing it down. Excessive pressure only overloads the paper and causes excessive heat. The balance is critical to make equal pressure all over the contact area.  If the weight isn’t centered over the pad, the sander want to dig in in the heavy side and leave tracks.

I like Black+Decker handheld belt sanders because they are generally well balanced, have some weight, and hold up pretty well. Of course, with such a small machine you can not sand a whole room or outside of your house without pauses. In general, small sanders are tools for small jobs. Read the manual, adjust the track of the belt with a small knob so it does not swing out of track. The sander is handy and small, the dust bag collects only a fraction of the dust unless you buy the optional part and connect the machine to a shop vac.

Best benchtop belt sander

Good benchtop belt sander will not be cheap. It should have the proper  power and SFPM to back it up. Cheap devices from HF usually severely lacking in both. They also are going to be pretty wimpy. If you need to make Harbor Freight sander acceptable, do some “tuning”, which requires a lathe.

My advice is to pay a little more and buy the WEN you are talking about and Its motor and the body are very good. They are built quite well and the only things lacking are the disk sanding table and angle slide thingy.

But despite that WEN owner get more than paid for in my opinion. The tool tracks the belt very well and the disc sander turn wood to dust so quick that you should be careful. Common use of WEN benchtop belt/disk sander is in woodworking. I think, you would buy it again if needed a second one.

You just can’t overload this device. It can stop, trip the breaker, but always able to get back up and running. Get the model with the cast iron base – a steel model work too, but the extra mass in the iron helps to stabilize sander and make it steady.

Yes, the miter gauge is darn near useless and taped labels are not precise. But it works, it’s making your work much easier and faster. The only probability to replace it with a note powerful version if you’ll need to use it 8 hours a day. If you only need it occasionally and for relatively light work, you’ll likely never need anything better.

If you plan to use sander often, but budget is a big concern, a high quality used machines is likely your best bet. For example a Kalamazoo S4 belt sander is well suited for light fab work. While it is not true industrial grade unit, the sander will outperform anything available from the box stores.

Best belt sander for deck

Floor sanding is a pretty time-consuming task for both DIY and experts the same. If you are planning to sand floors for a living you will need to invest in a best belt sander for deck.

Belt sander for deck is a big and expensive machine, the best way to find “your” tool is to rent a few different machines to see what you really like. However, the professionals in sanding floors are typically using devices that are quite different from those you may find in the rental yards.

I usually do one or to refinishes a year as part of remodeling and get the best results with a buffer. This tool flattens the floor much better than anything else I’ve used, including the sanders used by the last two floor finishing outfits we’ve used.

In addition to an edger I really like the Porter-Cable 6″ psa orbital sander that resembles a small angle grinder. The type of pad and larger orbit flatten areas much better, and remove twice as much material as a typical RPS, yet can be slowed down for a light touch.

My advice is to do some research, talk to a floor vendor that has everything you will need, try to find some courses or at least professional to demonstrate how each machine works, and rent before you jump in. This is an expensive tool.

Best belt sander for woodworking

I think, 3×21 or 4×24 belt sander by good brand is more than adequate tool for light duty woodworking tasks. They are easy to get a flat smooth surface. It is great if the sander come with a holder that allows it to be used in a stationary position on it’s side. Sometimes it is convenient to lock the device into a vice so that the bottom is facing up. This position is great for edges and sharpening hatchets and axes.

Makita makes great sanders, I think, it is certainly the market leader in belt sanders. In my opinion the Makita blows the Ryobi into the weeds, it is in a different league. I’ve tried 400m/min belt speed Ryobi and Makita 9403 works much better and faster. I saved about 3hrs of working time on sanding the components of a bog stock modular two bay oak frame. And the specs says that Makita has a belt speed of 500m/min.

The main difference between a 4 x 24 and 3 x 21 is your arm won’t fall off sanding edges. If you work all day long, you really only want to be using 4 x 24 sanders on the flat.

On the other hand the 3 x 21 is the most versatile if the tool will live in a truck and will be used for installations.

And I’d avoid no-name sanding belts, they often refuse to track properly and sometimes have thick joints bumping all the time. Most of my sanding I do with P40 – P120 grits. Anything finer than P120 on a belt sander in my opinion doesn’t make any sense, the random orbit sander is more appropriate in fine tasks.

P40 and P60 work good in grinding steps in joints, high spots on floors, etc. P60 to P80 are widely used for paint removal. P100 to P120 are common for medium quality sanding.

Best belt sander knife sharpener

If you have already made your first knife, chances are that you made it with a cheap and simple bench grinder and it was a very bad experience 🙂 Lots of knifemaking guys start with a 1×30″. Working with a 1-inch belt takes much longer, more belts are used, and machines usually have problems with bending and bending of the structural elements. So, in knife making the problem with cheap sanders is that they work, and makes it harder to buy a better tool.

Therefore, if you really want to buy 1×30″ sander, combine it with a hand filing jig. You will need you buy many belts with a 1×30″ grinding steel. They work but are better used for finish polishing on steel and handles.

In my opinion, the best belt sander-knife sharpener is a Sorby ProEdge plus sharpening system. These devices are designed for sharpening tools, but I also use it for sharpening knives, removing machining marks and grinding lathe tools. The only disadvantage is a the small size. The belt is 2″ wide and pretty high price (around $490 – for occasional use it maybe a bit spendy). But it’s a very good machine. Its design and build quality are in a different league from DIY type tools. The tool is made of good quality materials. Its tool rest is rock solid and repeatedly adjustable, the motor is powerful and reliable.  These facts, as well as the speed of the belt (very good for steel) make it the best belt sander for knife making.

Conclusions

Small and cheap belt sanders are strictly speaking for DIY use. However,  passionate DIYers sooner or later replace all of their most commonly used “DIY” tools for more professional models because always find the DIY machines inadequate. Nevertheless, you cannot always predict whether you will like the device. If it turns out to be not so necessary in your practice, then a cheap and compact sander will not be superfluous.

Pro tools are expensive and tend to be both designed for use by competent users and accurate. You really need good and expensive device when working with floors, knifemaking etc.