Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Makita). This thread is read-only.
I bought a used Makita belt sander because I needed to do heavy sanding on a large wood table. Model 9911, 650 W.
It seems to take much more material than the random orbital sander, but still it doesn’t feel like it has enough power on lower speeds.
If select lower speeds and push a bit harder on the sander, the motor sounds like it is struggling and eventually stops.
Is this normal for 650W belt sanders, or do I need to repair it?
You really shouldn’t be pushing down on a sander. The weight of the tool does the work. If you want more stock removal use a lower grit or a properly setup hand plane. What grit are you using on the sander? If your answer is more 80 grit you are using the wrong paper for removing material.
Also low speeds are generally for metal or plastic. Use a higher speed without downward pressure and KEEP the belt sander in motion with an appropriate grit paper. Be careful you can remove a
Once you have stuff leveled out you can use a finer paper say up to maybe 120 grit. After that go back to your random orbit sander and drop back down to 80 and work back up through the grits to remove the scratch pattern from the belt sander.
Good luck!
Depending on your application everything sands differently, just because its a high power belt doesn’t mean it won’t take a little time, like mentioned above let the sander do the work, belts can do more harm than good sometimes, make sure to stick with the grain and not cross grain sand, start low, light pressure and work your way to the higher grits. Depending on what I’m doing ill go through 3-4 sanders and a multitude of grits.
Also if your pushing to hard on the sander the grit will wear quickly so even if you have 80 on the machine it may wear to a 120 become ineffective