I bought one of these sanders brand new from Delta Rockwell 40+ yrs ago. Never used it. When I was cleaning out my garage last fall, I ran across this buzzard. And lo and behold; all of the wheels had disintegrated just as you said. Interesting. I doubt one could buy one of these wheels any where. And I am not a good enough machinists to try and make one. I do now have a use for a sanding machine like this. Oh well. Thanks Mr Pete for all you have taught us. May Jesus continue to bless you with innate gifts; that makes us luv ya so much!
I haven't been able to yet watch all Mr. Petes' videos but I have never watched one that I was disappointed in and have always felt better afterwards and thinking the world needs more Tubacains. I sure hope you get as much pleasure making all the videos as they give your audiences. It's hard to tell you my appreciation for your work and style, but thank you.
Mr. Pete, My late father was a fairly well known muzzle-loading gun maker and he used this sander almost more than any other powered tool in his shop. I still have it and it shows the wear, but believe it or not, it still functions as it did way back when. For something that he always referred to as a "chintzy tool," it sure has been a useful. I believe he said he bought it new sometime in the early 1960's from a gun makers supply catalog who sold Mead products.
I have the Delta/Rockwell version with cast iron table. Made new wheels from billet aluminum when the plastic ones disintegrated. Made a steel pulley to replace the cheap aluminum one on machine. It serves me well. I also use it to maintain perfect grind on my high speed steel threading tools. Clamp a guide to the table for the angle and tilt table to get undercut. Thanks for this series. Interesting!
Hot Dog!!! I have the same belt sander/grinder, I picked up for free, with some other machinery The company I worked for back in 1979, had purchased. Boy! did I get my butt chewed out for that! He never let me down over that either. It was missing the same items as yours. Funny, it came out of a machinery dealer in Chicago, too! It's mounted on a 1 x 12 with a 1/4 HP motor like that one had. Made a table for mine back then. Haven't used it in several years, been wanting to get it out of storage in a out building and clean it up and put it back to use! Thanks for the video! Another project for my shop. KenS.
Lyle, I'm looking forward to this series as well. My Mead is green formed steel, has cast iron table, but doesn't have either idler or the upper idler bracket. I have often wondered what the idler shafts were intended for. I upgraded to the Foley model 311 which has cast iron frame, tables, integral motor, wiring and a heavy cast iron integral 8" disc sander on a formed sheet metal stand. I use the Foley much more than the Mead, but the heavy enclosed casting prevents some functionality of the cheesier, but open Mead design. I will likely now follow your lead and add the idler wheel functionality to the Mead and resurrect it from its mothballed status. The Kalamazoo machines are hard to beat, but I never see them on the used market. Gold Kalamazoo branded motors never measured up to the Baldor driven Kalamazoos, but are still nice machines. Someday, if my pockets feel deep enough, I will jump over the Kalamazoo and purchase a Burr King. Now that is a real man's belt sander! The missing top front cover has a sticker that says Mead Fluid Dynamics, recommended motor HP and shaft speeds. I did not know that Mead only marketed the sander, explaining the home built belt guard, motor mount and Rube Goldberg wiring on my machine.
wow. looking forward to this series. Getting ready to do the same to my Chinese copy of the Delta. Mine has a disc sander (that I use all the time) on the side or I wouldn't even give it the time.
I bought a General upright band sander and grinder it just doesn't have the power. It's great, I have your knowledge that's in your videos to build my own. THX
Well what do you know... I have this sander, I acquired it at an estate sale, but it's in disrepair. I will definitely be watching all of these videos! Thank!!!
I have the same sander (sold by Sears Craftsman). My only complaint was when a belt broke, the upper boom would fly upwards and the belt would make a loud pop. The arm had too much free travel. I added a length of small chain from the boom to the mast so it only had a small amount of free play and it wasn't so violent when the belt broke. I would also like to point out that the lower bearing is actually the same bearing used in some automotive water pumps and table saw arbors. They are available from some of the larger bearing companies.
Hi Lyle nice to be here, we did watch the US Made Kalamazoo belt sander customization project. MrPete word of the day BLOVIATING to bloviate mr.pete is going to talk at great length and share in an inflated way. Thank you for the share Lance & Patrick, Patrick who cannot figure out those tools yesterday as I shared those with him. 46a mystery tools.
What’s odd is that if you set that up to sand on the inside of something, the abrasive on the belt is rubbing against those little wheels. Can’t wait for the rest of the series.
For as many as they old sanders were made and sold, I've never seen one in my entire life, until today on TH-cam, where a guy had an old Delta style as you show at 10:00, from the Delta advertisement. But I've never actually seen a belt sander in any person's shop, and I've been auto body shops, and all sorts of shops, and have never seen one. I think they fell out of favor at some point, and people stopped using them for some reason. They seem to have made a huge resurgence recently in the last few years, and now every TH-cam video features a belt sander (quite literally). Radial arm saws have also made a huge resurgence, where people suddenly realize that they could do certain things better than any other tool, like really fast crosscutting of dados. You can also mount polishing wheels, grinding wheels, and sanding discs to a radial arm saw motor, and a drill chuck on one side of the motor, opposite of the arbor. The compound angle of the motor, means you can make it into a blade sharpener, for complex blade pitch angles, using a grinding disc instead a sawblade.
I am replacing the bearings on my Rockwell version of this machine. I wonder why you prefer a rubber seal over metal one in this particular application? Thanks
Lyle, you mentioned the old cast-iron version of these Mead sanders. Do you happen to remember if they were the same color of gray like this one? I'm doing a restoration on one, and might as well make it look original. Any help is appreciated. Great job on these videos! I watched them all! I agree, the original cast-iron version was better!
I have an even later model of this sander that my Dad bought in the early-mid 80's. It looks like D-R tried to cheapen it even more by using a smaller, very high RPM motor with a small gearbox to reduce the belt speed. It still ran waaay too fast, has no torque when the belt is loaded with work, and worst of all it is almost unuseably loud due to straight-cut gears in a cast aluminium gearbox. It's still a handy tool, but I keep a dedicated set of earmuffs hanging on it. I've been waiting for the right small induction motor so I can try to convert it back to the configuration you have here, and eliminate that terrible gearbox. I had the same issue with the plastic wheels disintegrating, but I have had very good results replacing the wheels with high quality roller skate wheels and bearings that can tolerate the high RPMs. They use standard 608 bearings, are easily modified and have high quality urethane molded to a precisely concentric plastic hub. And are readily available in matched sets of 8!
This is going to be a good one , looking forward to the next episodes . Do you have a link maybe where the parts illustration etc can be downloaded ? Might also be interesting to say a few words about sfpm for the belt . I see all kinds of grinders on the net , but very little information on how fast or slow they go . Pat Belgium
Hi Mr. Pete I have the belsaw model it looks the same.if you would like to use the table, mounting bracket and the upper arm as a pattern or to copy let me know. It is not in use at the moment because of a recent move. I do realise that at this point you are probably half way finished with the project. If not I would love to help in any way I could. Andy Z.
"You can be sure...If it's Westinghouse" Maybe.. I wonder what happened to all those Belsaw saw filing machines? Went the way of "being your own boss", I suppose.
I have seen the filing machines at auctions. People do not know what they are, because they are laying on their side's. Often there is no bid or they go to the scrap man
I remember seeing handsaws sharpened on them. It did a very nice job, thus avoiding the tedium of filing by hand. Now, handsaws (even if you can find one) are mostly non-sharpenable due to the flame-hardened teeth.
Two of them reside in my shop along with a toother and a setter. Got a job today rebuilding several handsaws for a man at hardware store. Have done many hand-saw rebuilds.
Mr. Pete, it is interesting how the lineage of these sanders goes all the way to my (second-hand) 1993 Enco Taiwan cheesy sheet-metal unit. It has almost exactly same setup you showed including the "open-face" motor. As someone pointed out, it even has a disc on the motor shaft. I always wondered why the arm on the top-wheel shaft (perhaps to keep the belt entry parallel with the platen?), and what about that roller down below that has no belt and no obvious use (spare?). As soon as I saw the video, I had to run to the garage and check it out. Mine has all three wheels for running the belt in "slot" mode - no need to move the rear pulley forward. Now I know; also gained a bit more respect for the unit design. Incidentally, mine also has two large solid plastic main wheels with crown and transverse grooves (to shed debris?), no sign of polyurethane tyres. The three small ones are zinc alloy. Every lesson with Mr. Pete is an adventure in learning. Thank, you, Sir!
7:00 I get those bugs out here in So. Cal.. I believe they are an Asian Stink beetle. You have to be careful how you dispatch them because of the smell. And because they are so stupid and easy to catch, I am sure that nature has made sure they multiply very easily. I am so shocked to see that you have the same bugs out your way and in such a different climate. It obviously is the early signs of the Apocalypse.
I find these bugs also now in the Pacific Northwest. Because of the smell, I usually trap them under a glass jar, then slip a piece of paper moistened with isopropanol underneath the mouth of the jar and cause asphixiation. At least the bugs die happily drunk.
That’s all I use 1 x 42 belt sander. However my Delta is a much more modern one that I got for $0. The guy I purchased my mill from had it, it too was in the CLT airport and they was trashing it. The switch did not work so installed a house light switch in a box. It had the disc sander on yet side, I never could keep discs stuck on it so I made a spacer and removed it. When my plastic wheels give up I too will machine aluminum replacements. Here is a photo of mine share.icloud.com/photos/0rKWxDP6Gq4HdWkoLlDWvbAxA#Dallas,_NC
Always good seeing an old tool get a new lease on life.
Yes
I bought one of these sanders brand new from Delta Rockwell 40+ yrs ago. Never used it.
When I was cleaning out my garage last fall, I ran across this buzzard. And lo and behold; all of the wheels had disintegrated just as you said.
Interesting. I doubt one could buy one of these wheels any where. And I am not a good enough machinists to try and make one. I do now have a use for a sanding machine like this. Oh well.
Thanks Mr Pete for all you have taught us. May Jesus continue to bless you with innate gifts; that makes us luv ya so much!
I haven't been able to yet watch all Mr. Petes' videos but I have never watched one that I was disappointed in and have always felt better afterwards and thinking the world needs more Tubacains. I sure hope you get as much pleasure making all the videos as they give your audiences. It's hard to tell you my appreciation for your work and style, but thank you.
Thank you very much. I needed a little encouragement today
I enjoy your projects and without this video I would have missed a lot of good information.
👍👍
As always, for the past six years, great video! Thank you for the edutainment!
Thanks
Mr. Pete,
My late father was a fairly well known muzzle-loading gun maker and he used this sander almost more than any other powered tool in his shop. I still have it and it shows the wear, but believe it or not, it still functions as it did way back when. For something that he always referred to as a "chintzy tool," it sure has been a useful. I believe he said he bought it new sometime in the early 1960's from a gun makers supply catalog who sold Mead products.
Thanks
Thanks for pointing so early. Finishing up night shift and it's always nice to end my day with one of your vids.
I have the Delta/Rockwell version with cast iron table. Made new wheels from billet aluminum when the plastic ones disintegrated. Made a steel pulley to replace the cheap aluminum one on machine. It serves me well. I also use it to maintain perfect grind on my high speed steel threading tools. Clamp a guide to the table for the angle and tilt table to get undercut.
Thanks for this series. Interesting!
👍👍
Hot Dog!!! I have the same belt sander/grinder, I picked up for free, with some other machinery The company I worked for back in 1979, had purchased. Boy! did I get my butt chewed out for that! He never let me down over that either. It was missing the same items as yours. Funny, it came out of a machinery dealer in Chicago, too! It's mounted on a 1 x 12 with a 1/4 HP motor like that one had. Made a table for mine back then. Haven't used it in several years, been wanting to get it out of storage in a out building and clean it up and put it back to use! Thanks for the video! Another project for my shop. KenS.
👍
Nice overview of the sander. Great restoration project.
Thanks
Nice video. Love old tools maybe cause I am old too.👍👍👍👍👍
Watching in Alabama!
😄
Lyle,
I'm looking forward to this series as well. My Mead is green formed steel, has cast iron table, but doesn't have either idler or the upper idler bracket. I have often wondered what the idler shafts were intended for. I upgraded to the Foley model 311 which has cast iron frame, tables, integral motor, wiring and a heavy cast iron integral 8" disc sander on a formed sheet metal stand. I use the Foley much more than the Mead, but the heavy enclosed casting prevents some functionality of the cheesier, but open Mead design. I will likely now follow your lead and add the idler wheel functionality to the Mead and resurrect it from its mothballed status.
The Kalamazoo machines are hard to beat, but I never see them on the used market. Gold Kalamazoo branded motors never measured up to the Baldor driven Kalamazoos, but are still nice machines. Someday, if my pockets feel deep enough, I will jump over the Kalamazoo and purchase a Burr King. Now that is a real man's belt sander!
The missing top front cover has a sticker that says Mead Fluid Dynamics, recommended motor HP and shaft speeds.
I did not know that Mead only marketed the sander, explaining the home built belt guard, motor mount and Rube Goldberg wiring on my machine.
Thanks
Good project. Looking forward to the next installment. Thanks.
Thanks
Oh, Mr. Pete! This is going to be a good one.
Thanks
Very good video! I wish I could wait till all the series is finished to watch! Keep them coming!
Thank you, next episode is on Sunday
This is gonna be edutainment at it’s best!
Thanks
wow. looking forward to this series. Getting ready to do the same to my Chinese copy of the Delta. Mine has a disc sander (that I use all the time) on the side or I wouldn't even give it the time.
Looking forward to this! I bet you replace all the bearings. As for the table, I bet you use 1/4" steel plate.
I bought a General upright band sander and grinder it just doesn't have the power. It's great, I have your knowledge that's in your videos to build my own. THX
Thank you for watching
Can’t wait for the next one
Sunday
I need to restore mine... got it at the junkyard... THANKS!
Yes
Well what do you know... I have this sander, I acquired it at an estate sale, but it's in disrepair. I will definitely be watching all of these videos! Thank!!!
👍👍
I have the same sander (sold by Sears Craftsman). My only complaint was when a belt broke, the upper boom would fly upwards and the belt would make a loud pop. The arm had too much free travel. I added a length of small chain from the boom to the mast so it only had a small amount of free play and it wasn't so violent when the belt broke. I would also like to point out that the lower bearing is actually the same bearing used in some automotive water pumps and table saw arbors. They are available from some of the larger bearing companies.
Yes. It was start rolling when the belt broke
What a great sander! I made 3 videos restoring mine, can't wait to watch your restoration. BTW, I mailed the Bernard pliers on Friday. Cheers
Looking forwards to the rest of the series :-)
Thanks
Hi Lyle nice to be here, we did watch the US Made Kalamazoo belt sander customization project. MrPete word of the day BLOVIATING to bloviate mr.pete is going to talk at great length and share in an inflated way. Thank you for the share Lance & Patrick, Patrick who cannot figure out those tools yesterday as I shared those with him. 46a mystery tools.
lol thanks boys
What’s odd is that if you set that up to sand on the inside of something, the abrasive on the belt is rubbing against those little wheels.
Can’t wait for the rest of the series.
Yes, and it ruins them
Thank you.
👍
For as many as they old sanders were made and sold, I've never seen one in my entire life, until today on TH-cam, where a guy had an old Delta style as you show at 10:00, from the Delta advertisement. But I've never actually seen a belt sander in any person's shop, and I've been auto body shops, and all sorts of shops, and have never seen one. I think they fell out of favor at some point, and people stopped using them for some reason. They seem to have made a huge resurgence recently in the last few years, and now every TH-cam video features a belt sander (quite literally). Radial arm saws have also made a huge resurgence, where people suddenly realize that they could do certain things better than any other tool, like really fast crosscutting of dados. You can also mount polishing wheels, grinding wheels, and sanding discs to a radial arm saw motor, and a drill chuck on one side of the motor, opposite of the arbor. The compound angle of the motor, means you can make it into a blade sharpener, for complex blade pitch angles, using a grinding disc instead a sawblade.
👍👍
THANK YOU...for sharing.
I am replacing the bearings on my Rockwell version of this machine. I wonder why you prefer a rubber seal over metal one in this particular application? Thanks
I just think it keeps the dust out better. But maybe not
Good Morning Mr Pete 🙂
Lyle, you mentioned the old cast-iron version of these Mead sanders. Do you happen to remember if they were the same color of gray like this one? I'm doing a restoration on one, and might as well make it look original. Any help is appreciated.
Great job on these videos! I watched them all! I agree, the original cast-iron version was better!
I do not remember the original color. In fact I never saw an original one in person. Only in pictures and advertisements
I have an even later model of this sander that my Dad bought in the early-mid 80's. It looks like D-R tried to cheapen it even more by using a smaller, very high RPM motor with a small gearbox to reduce the belt speed. It still ran waaay too fast, has no torque when the belt is loaded with work, and worst of all it is almost unuseably loud due to straight-cut gears in a cast aluminium gearbox.
It's still a handy tool, but I keep a dedicated set of earmuffs hanging on it. I've been waiting for the right small induction motor so I can try to convert it back to the configuration you have here, and eliminate that terrible gearbox.
I had the same issue with the plastic wheels disintegrating, but I have had very good results replacing the wheels with high quality roller skate wheels and bearings that can tolerate the high RPMs. They use standard 608 bearings, are easily modified and have high quality urethane molded to a precisely concentric plastic hub. And are readily available in matched sets of 8!
And a later video I show another cheap sander that is so loud you cannot use it
I have a similar one that was sold by Dayton but had also has a 8 inch Disc Sander on it with a cast iron table
👍
Waiting for next video. Going to bash ?
I'm getting close to making a decision
Thanks for sharing sir..
Thanks
This is going to be a good one , looking forward to the next episodes .
Do you have a link maybe where the parts illustration etc can be downloaded ?
Might also be interesting to say a few words about sfpm for the belt . I see all kinds of grinders on the net , but very little
information on how fast or slow they go .
Pat
Belgium
Is there a specific difference between a band sander and a belt sander?
Belt width
@@mrpete222
Thanks, Lyle. And is delineation @ 1" or what?
Up early check. Coffee check. Digging on shop check. Do we get extra credit for watching before breakfast? Love your posts. Thank you for sharing
lol
I have the Delta, it previously belonged to my grandfather, then my dad, and now know that I have never seen the belt on correctly.
👍
Hi Mr. Pete I have the belsaw model it looks the same.if you would like to use the table, mounting bracket and the upper arm as a pattern or to copy let me know. It is not in use at the moment because of a recent move. I do realise that at this point you are probably half way finished with the project. If not I would love to help in any way I could. Andy Z.
Thanks anyway. I made this video six months ago, it's all done
I just picked up one of these for $10 but the belt bounces around so bad anybody know how to fix that
Good morning Professor, were you bloviating or "meadiating"
lol
"You can be sure...If it's Westinghouse" Maybe..
I wonder what happened to all those Belsaw saw filing machines? Went the way of "being your own boss", I suppose.
I have seen the filing machines at auctions. People do not know what they are, because they are laying on their side's. Often there is no bid or they go to the scrap man
I remember seeing handsaws sharpened on them. It did a very nice job, thus avoiding the tedium of filing by hand. Now, handsaws (even if you can find one) are mostly non-sharpenable due to the flame-hardened teeth.
Two of them reside in my shop along with a toother and a setter. Got a job today rebuilding several handsaws for a man at hardware store. Have done many hand-saw rebuilds.
Mr. Pete, it is interesting how the lineage of these sanders goes all the way to my (second-hand) 1993 Enco Taiwan cheesy sheet-metal unit. It has almost exactly same setup you showed including the "open-face" motor. As someone pointed out, it even has a disc on the motor shaft.
I always wondered why the arm on the top-wheel shaft (perhaps to keep the belt entry parallel with the platen?), and what about that roller down below that has no belt and no obvious use (spare?). As soon as I saw the video, I had to run to the garage and check it out. Mine has all three wheels for running the belt in "slot" mode - no need to move the rear pulley forward. Now I know; also gained a bit more respect for the unit design. Incidentally, mine also has two large solid plastic main wheels with crown and transverse grooves (to shed debris?), no sign of polyurethane tyres. The three small ones are zinc alloy.
Every lesson with Mr. Pete is an adventure in learning. Thank, you, Sir!
👍👍
Cool
Thanks
First one I've seen
"but it was old enough to smoke!" 😅
I heard you say....paint? It's not something you say often, and I have to say, I am with you there. LOL.
Pin striping would be nice.
Those SLOTTED SCREWS on the backing, HATE slotted screws.
7:00 I get those bugs out here in So. Cal.. I believe they are an Asian Stink beetle. You have to be careful how you dispatch them because of the smell. And because they are so stupid and easy to catch, I am sure that nature has made sure they multiply very easily. I am so shocked to see that you have the same bugs out your way and in such a different climate. It obviously is the early signs of the Apocalypse.
I find these bugs also now in the Pacific Northwest. Because of the smell, I usually trap them under a glass jar, then slip a piece of paper moistened with isopropanol underneath the mouth of the jar and cause asphixiation. At least the bugs die happily drunk.
I don't know,after watching Fireball tools sander build,this is like walking through the Lakers locker room..
That’s all I use 1 x 42 belt sander. However my Delta is a much more modern one that I got for $0. The guy I purchased my mill from had it, it too was in the CLT airport and they was trashing it. The switch did not work so installed a house light switch in a box. It had the disc sander on yet side, I never could keep discs stuck on it so I made a spacer and removed it. When my plastic wheels give up I too will machine aluminum replacements. Here is a photo of mine share.icloud.com/photos/0rKWxDP6Gq4HdWkoLlDWvbAxA#Dallas,_NC
we stopped calling them stink bugs and have renamed them dinosaur bugs. The grand children are less appalled by that.
lol