Belt Sander Refurb

 

My cheapo belt sander has been getting sluggish recently so I stripped it down to find out why.
The bearings had pretty much seized up and one was rattling about on the shaft, having worn it down (e.g The shaft was rotating loose in the inner race of the bearing).
Fortunately the outer portion of the shaft is smaller diameter (11mm) where the pulley fits. The bearing inner diameter is 12mm and the shaft had worn down to a whisker over 11mm.
So I was able to turn the whole shaft down to 11mm , I then turned a bush with an inner bore of 11mm, pushed that over the shaft (with some epoxy for good measure) and then turned it down to 12mm.
That repair went well so I've ordered new bearings, good quality sealed ones, the old ones were "shielded" which keeps out big bits of crud but aren't good for dust. Mind I've cleaned out the old ones and they are ok, but for a few quid, I'm happier not to have to repeat the strip down every few years.
While I'm waiting for the bearings I thought I'd make some other improvements, like moving the on/off switch to an accessible location, improving the dust extraction and making belt changing easier.

Last pic shows work in progress, you can see where I've moved the power switch. I'll blank off the hole with some sheet aluminium or a bit of 1/8" ply.