[sdiy] Fixing cheap machinery

[Tim Ressel]

Yo,

I just successfully made a $30 belt sander into a
usable piece of gear. This Harbor Freight special is
by far the crappiest piece I've ever seen. But it does
spin a 1x30" belt. I'm very poor, you see. However,
the tracking was way off and the belt would slide to
the far end of its tracking range and start taking off
material from the casting.

After examining the unit (while shaking my head), I
noticed the idler wheel was loose. This is the wheel
that adjusts tracking of the belt by rotating in the
'yaw' axis of the machine. I discovered it could also
move in the 'roll' axis, due to extreme sloppy
machining. I took a piece of plastic and whittled a
shim, and installed it on the shaft of the wheel,
holding it in with wire ties. The belt now tracks
okay.

The moral of this story is: Don't buy crap. But if you
must, it can sometimes be improved.

--TR

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