Retrofit My 2" x 72" for New Life

[BelnapCustomKnives]

I am working on a completely new sander frame but in the meantime had a few blades that needed to get done. I have the old USA No Weld frame that I have been using but decided to retrofit some of the hardware that is designed for the new sander onto the old frame to see how it goes. I put it on yesterday afternoon. I just bolted it up to the existing frame posts. The installation was pretty simple but the performance improvement has been fantastic. No more sloppy steel tubes to deal with. You can see in the images that the slides are very snug in the clamps. They auto center when the clamp is tightened. I don't have to wonder if I got all of the slop out the same so bevels will match. Just tighten up the clamp and it is in the right place every time.

Also put on one of the platens that I designed for use with the Multi Guide bevel guide. I grind in a way that I have not seen anyone else doing yet. All of my bevels are ground edge down. It is a very fast and accurate method. Also increases belt life by many times. One belt has ground more than 50 blanks and is still going using the edge down method.

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[Fred Kingery]

Darryl,
Fred Kingery here, are there any plans, parts lists available?
I really like your designs for machinery.

 

[JTknives]

I will give you a little advice. I would ditch the aluminium. A big problem that aluminium as well as stainless has (ask me how I know) is that it loves it's self. Aluminium sliding inside of aluminium is going to gall and freeze up. You add grit to this mix and it's bound to happen sooner then later. A case in point is my nice stainless KMG clone I made. It's got to the point where I just about can't get the tool arm to move. I pulled the arm out and looked at the bottom of the bar and inside the hole and wow no wonder why it is froze up. I'm just giving you a heads up. I would hate for you to put all the time into a nice grinder and have to seaze up on you.

 

[Tin.Man]

Maybe you need to mill some relief JT? I made one entirely of 7075 and stainless hardware and the only point of friction was where the locking bolt makes contact with the tooling arm, so I milled a slot not deep at all maybe 1/32" deep and wide enough for the bolt. No more problems. I also blow it all off with air so I don't let grit build up. But also grind wet and zero rust