The Highland Park Wet Belt Sander // Two Machines In One
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- This machine has done pretty well in the month I have used it before making this video, and with some small modifications I think it's even better than when I pulled it out of the box.
I'm not sure that it will replace my arbor and carpet wheel anytime soon, but it's a good addition to the shop.
Thanks for watching!
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#CurrentlyRockhounding #lapidary
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That was really great of HP to send that to you for an honest review of their product! Your reputation as a machinist, lapidary, and a honest reviewer of products, plus the amount of people you can reach, says a lot about you in this industry! Like I've said before, you are trusted by people, to give an honest and well thought out opinion of various products or even parts, for repairs of products! Your word is golden in this field! And that says a lot about you! You are honest to a fault, and that is what I love best about you. You don't hold back, and hold punches, no matter who or what you are reviewing. So that we can trust what you say. And you aren't going to give a flowing review of something, just because they sent it to you for free, to review, like most people tend to do! So thank you Jared for this honest review of this HP belt and polish machine! It is a good machine, but with some modifications, it could be a great machine! Your opinion is always appreciated! Thanks Jared!
"It whips that thing, it whips it!" Speed control is so vital once you have machines with that feature. Something I didn't see on that machine was a backing plate behind the straight area of the belt to keep it from twisting or bowing. That is a common feature on belt sanders. *Edit: I left this comment three-quarters of the way through. You addressed both issues.
Great job. Love your honest opinion. Your shop just keeps getting better and bigger. Mad respect 👍
Honest reviews of products, hopefully they listen to the reviews and take into account potential upgrades.
Watching that wheel start up and pick up speed was intimidating even from here. There really wasn't much in the way of mods you made or proposed that appeared time consuming or expensive. I'm not sure of the over all price tag on the machine, but the few bucks in mods wouldn't deter me from a similar purchase. Input like this could help in the next model, who knows.
Also I found that by installing a piece if sheet metal under the felt holding fixture to push the felt to almost touching the belt, it will spread the water evenly and you can get by with the single water dripper. As it is from the factory, the felt hangs uselessly about 1.5" away from the belt, contributing to the mess on the floor as well.
Thank you for the tip, I will try that as well. it wouldn't hurt to do more than one thing here.
Great video! I really like the smaller foot print of the machine and that it works so well for bigger stones. I learned a valuable lessen recently trying to do a flat slab on my Cab King Cabbing Machine, it was near impossible! The Cab King also has a buffer on the end, and spins at the same RPM as the cabbing wheels, I thought it was just me thinking it is way to fast for buffing. I was yelling at the screen, "I knew it" over and over hahahaha! Thanks for the review! And thank you Highland Park for sending Jared the machine so we can see how it works.
I have never used one of those flat wheels that attache to the side of a cab machine but they sure do spin fast at 1750rpm for a nice buff.
Very impressive!
Great video all around. I really liked the intro. Nice honest review. Very thorough. I would consider buying it if i were in the market for a belt sander. Thank you for the great video and all your time and effort.
Thank you very much!
Good mods. Polish on!😊
shiny, new, fun.
Excellent presentation again, Jared! Can tell you put a lot of thought into this. I agree on the rpm on the buffer. Seems like a real miss in engineering from HP on this part of the unit. Good recommendations!
I’ve watched your videos for a couple of years now for fun and education but am now watching for a more practical use after just picking up one of these at an estate sale for $150. It’s an oldie and needs a new shroud for the whole belt side but it runs. Thanks for the information and the demonstration of the functionality. Do you have a preferred belt type/manufacturer? Keep up the good work
Have one of the earlier ones…few years old 2020?…my doesn’t have the domed wheel…happy to see they fixed that cuz I had tracking issues…had to add some progressively narrower duck tape to middle of the upper wheel to make it track.
I added a back platen behind the belt so it would grind/polish flat. Also added a “table” in front of the belt so I could achieve 90° angles.
Few other things I would like refined but good machine.
Oh and the base is phenolic…google ”phenolic base”….should be able to find the material…not the cheapest but worth it…
Also could find an old Corian countertop🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for vid!
I would love to see a photo of your platen and table you made. I still need to make one for this machine.
Good video.
Good review.
Noice. 👊 I have this strong urge to come over and rub some dirt on that machine... It's so clean!
Come on over sometime.
A good machine by the look of it. Nice wee mods made it even better 👍
I am envious, have been looking at HP saws, combo units, and this unit but im too broke to buy any haha. Another great video, thank you for making informative and entertaining content for us!
Give it time and start looking for deals on used machines.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding i used to have a lortone combo cabbing machine, 12" slab saw, 2 bull wheels, 2 laps, and a wood wheel polisher (custom made), they were my grandfathers but due to unfortunate events i could not keep them. (Not trying to pitty party, i just miss cabbing 😅). He had thousands of pounds of rocks and even had a giant piece of glass from the hanford enrichment chamber.
@@turnerg I'm sorry to hear that but I'm sure you can find some replacements.
Nice review and great upgrades!
Thank you for the instructions🎉
Looks like a great machine for polishing larger stuff! I've been doing some polishing with my wet angle grinder and well it's an improvement over the rough cut but ehhh... I need work. I'm definitely learning though! I have some ideas and I'm thinking I might be able to polish more things than I thought! This belt sander is definitely something I'll have to tell the owner of Haunted Ridge about. Bit pricey for me and I don't have the space but this is definitely the type of polishing I'm more interested in than cabochons. Great video Jared.
Because of the collaboration we did, I think we both agree that a slower speed on the polishing wheel is needed. Also, since it is missing the backing plate for doing "flats" (which would be a problem for someone in AFMS competition), would it be possible to remove the buffing wheel and put a solid grinding disk in it's place? Kind of like a vertical flat lap. Since you've already added more water feeds, what's another one. Also, have you checked in with any of the plastic manufacturers? I know there used to be one in Portland that I used a number of years ago TAP Plastics has a website. It wouldn't bother me if some of these companies wanted my "opinion" of their products. Just saying. As usual, another nice video. someone sells a Cerium Oxide belt for that. Scott Wilkins uses one on his channel and gets a great polish on his cabs.
Yeah I think a vertical flat wheel might be in order here or a flat platen behind the belt.
This machine is nice but out of the box I think it just needs some improvements.
I will say that having all of the room around the belt is nice and I feel like if I ever get to try a six wheel cab machine I will feel like its really crowded.
Also I like Scotts channel.
Mending fences 😂 Cool of Highland Park
For small machine bases I prefer to make them out of use polyurethane cutting blocks. To bad I can't find them really big.
Oh I never thought of using those. I might have to give that a try. Thank you.
Great review and perfect timing. I've been looking at this unit over the last couple weeks and not much real info on it until now! I've been torn between the HP wet belt sander and going with a big Arbor like your Lortone with 8" expandable drums. In your experience, did you feel like they HP wet belt sander performed similar to the Lortone 8x3 expandable drum for grinding and shaping? Does one or the other do a superior job or does the wet belt sander just help to keep things slightly more flat than domed with the bigger flat working surface while sanding and shaping? Thanks for all the tips and videos, I've been going down the rabbit hole on your page.
Now depending on what you're doing I think I would go with the 8x3 expandable drums. In many ways it gives you more options of what you can do with ti and the belts you can run.
Looks like a good machine!
Why isn't it good for making cabochons? Could it be modified?
To aid in sanding a flat surface or for some aspects of cabochon forming, add a plate of steel behind the belt. Maybe Highland Park offers an adapter? For grinding steel, that's all I've used. I've made my own 6 inch heavy duty belt sander. Removing the back plate is good for rounding surfaces. So I don't know why you think it's not good for cabbing?
For sure add the variable speed controller.
Tks for the review!
P.S. read my suggestions on your DIY diamond belt. Tks for the great vid, it's a favorite topic of mine.
I think the main down side for making cabs would be the lack of a way to flatten the back if you only had this machine to do it but something like a flat platen behind the belt would work for sure.
I did read your comments about the diamond belts and it is something I'm going to keep improving on in the future.
I just got the Highland Park Lapidary WBS unit and they now have a Flat Plate accessory to go behind the Sanding Belt.
I really like your water supply upgrade* idea to keep the belt clean & wet across it's full width !
The buffer's speed certainly demands your full attention, hate to shoot a rock off into space . I noticed you got a Comment on changing the belt wheel size to reduce the speed, is that something you might have additional suggestions on ?
Great video , thank you for creating Content like this.
*I also noticed the great Comment idea on adding a piece of sheet metal to hold the felt against the sanding belt, did you try that ?
Great timing on this comment!
I just got my flat plate in the mail, and I'm looking forward to testing it out for a future video.
As for the buffer, I haven't spent much time with it, however the idea of getting a new pulley is good for slowing it down. I mostly don't use the buffer wheel since I have better options.
The felt just wears down more the more you hold it against the wheel.
Boy , last night I put a heavy orange peal on a piece of Rainbow Obsidian using the cerium pad ... I'm rookie using a machine with Obsidian so I can't blame the Wet Belt Sander.
I guess I'll have to go way back in sanding grits to correct ?
Excellent as usual. I have that machine and agree with your conclusions completely. Where did you get those water components?
How would it work for making stone knife blades? Would you recommend this machine for that purpose?
I don't really know, to be honest, I'm not sure if I have seen that before or really know what's fully involved in a project like that.
Hey. Did you use a pump for the water line that feeds the sander? If so, what was the brand?
I do! I'm just using a cheap fountain pump from Harbor Freight.
I have been looking for something to make flat thin earrings with. I have a cab machine with 6 inch nova wheels but it is very difficult to get a perfectly flat finish with it. Would a machine like this work ?
If you really want something to be perfectly flat, than a flat lap machine like the one Hi-Tech sells is good for that.
12:27 replace the belt wheel with a smaller (different sized) diameter one; that will produce the speed you want
I could use the water drip shield. Would you consider making and selling one?
That's not really a thing I do, but I'm sure you can make one up. I just made it out of cardboard and transferred it to aluminum.
What is your overall opinion on the quality of HP machines. I’m in the market for a cabbing machine and seriously considering the CB8.
I have never used the CB8 but if I could afford a cab machine I would likely buy that one for a number of reasons.
Cool video
What's the benefits of this machine vs a flat lap?
That question could really be its own video, but you get a uniform SFPM with a belt vs. a flat lap and more space to work, and its faster.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding
Interesting.
Let me do some more research about this machine.
👁👁 🍿🍺