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I recently got a new Hitachi SB8V2 belt sander and am an aspiring woodworker wanting to do various small projects around my house. I don't have the space or budget to get a disc sanding table (or equivalent), but I have seen several articles/videos about making a mount/harness for a belt sander to turn it into one, which seems like a very appealing idea to me.

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Trouble is, all the videos I've found on the topic make one of the two following assumptions:

  1. Your belt sander has a flat surface on its side.
  2. Your belt sander has holes to mount it to something else.

Unfortunately, this Hitachi sander has neither. Both sides are curved and neither side has screw holes that I can see that might allow me to mount it to something.

I've been trying to brainstorm an alternative mounting solution and have been unsuccessful so far, so I wanted to ask here to see if anyone has a similar sander (or equivalent) that they've built a mount for, and if so, how you did it.

For reference, here's a YouTube search results that show various methods for mounting other sanders: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mount+belt+sander

I've watched the top 15-ish results and nothing mentioned there looks like it would work with my sander.

Would love any and all ideas!

NOTE: Looking for creative suggestions for mounting this sander, not suggestions for returning the sander and buying another one.

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    Are you stuck on the idea of setting it on its side? Plenty of ideas for a full invert, especially if you take that clear plastic thingy off the front.
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Jan 20, 2017 at 20:35
  • Kudos for the well-asked Question and showing the research done up to this point. Unfortunately it does look like it's not going to be easy to mount your sander in the way you're hoping! If nobody else comes along with a viable solution I'll try to work out something over the weekend.
    – Graphus
    Jan 21, 2017 at 0:21
  • @AloysiusDefenestrate Ideally I'd love to build a mount that can pivot to have the sander on its side or inverted (or even at an angle), but I'll take any ideas at the moment. Have an idea for full invert? Not sure what plastic thingy you're referring to, but I'll go down and look again at my unit to see if I can figure it out while I wait for a response. ;)
    – neezer
    Jan 21, 2017 at 0:28
  • @AloysiusDefenestrate Just realizing that "full invert" might mean belt-facing-up. I'd love a solution where the belt is facing sideways, either at a 90° (↕) or 180° (↔) angle (imagining the arrow heads are the rollers holding the paper and that in both cases, the paper faces the viewer). I'd prefer not to have to hold my pieces over the sanding surface; would like to be able to use my hands to guide the wood, not support it. Does that clarify?
    – neezer
    Jan 21, 2017 at 0:35
  • Just glancing around, I found this: ibuildit.ca/Workshop%20Projects/belt-sander-1.html It's complicated, but quite functional. (And the plastic thingy I was talking about was above the front roller... It looks like you'd have a flatter surface to mate to, if it was gone.)
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Jan 21, 2017 at 1:57

1 Answer 1

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I've looked at as many photos and diagrams of your sander that I could find online but without having it in front of me I can't be sure what method(s) would work best to mount this as you'd like. So I'm just going to post a selection of published methods, at least one of which should be adaptable to your sander.

Belt-sander jig 1 Belt-sander jig 2

Belt-sander jig 3

Source: Popular Mechanics, November 1983

Belt-sander jig 4a Belt-sander jig 4b

Source: ShopNotes #53

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