BELT SANDER SAFETY TIPS

There are many different types of industrial Kalamazoo Industries belt sanders.  You have wet belt sanders, dry belt sanders, vertical only belt sanders, horizontal only belt sanders and lastly you have multi position belt sanders.  With that being said, all those belt sander types mentioned have three things in common:

    • They all sander material.
    • They all take belts.
    • They all require the operator to be safe while operating the equipment.

In this article we’ll focus on belt sander safety tips.  Having an industrial tool such as a belt sander in your shop is really handy to have.  They can bevel, deburr, round and do many other sanding operations.  But if your not careful you can get hurt and what is supposed be a useful tool can send you to the emergency room if you aren’t careful.

Below is a list of belt sander safety tips if followed will keep you safe while operating your Kalamazoo Industries belt sander.

  • WEAR EAR protection while operating your belt sander.  Even though when you turn the sander on the noise level isn’t to loud, but when you go sand on the sander the noise level will increase.  So wearing ear protection while operating the sander will protect YOUR HEARING.
  • DON’T WEAR GLOVES OR HAVE LOOSE ARTICLES OF CLOTHING!  The glove’s or having loose articles of clothing that you have on your body could get caught in the belt and cause you injury.
  • When preforming preventative maintenance or repairing your belt sander, SHUT OFF AND DISCONNECT THE BELT SANDER.  This has to be done so whoever is fixing the equipment doesn’t get injured if somebody goes to turn the belt sander on.
  • ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GLASSES.  This like ear protection is a must. Having objects fly into your eyes could cause you injury and possibly loss of eye sight.
  • NEVER MIX DIFFERENT MATERIALS WHEN SANDING.  When sanding on your belt sander sparks are created, typically this isn’t an issue if you have a wet belt sander and or a plain jane sander.  Where this becomes problematic is when your belt sander has a dust collector.   All your debris is collected in one location.  That’s the formula for a fire (mixing different materials + one dust bag + sparks = fire).  To remedy this, when you do sand different material and your connected to a vacuum system thoroughly clean your vacuum and remove all debris you also treat your bags with a liquid that will eliminate that possibility of sparks causing a fire.  You will still have to thoroughly clean your vacuum.  For our DCV-1 we offer a fire treated bag the part number for that is 142-9901FP and for the DCV-4 which also takes a filter.  The fire treated filter for the DCV-4 is 5X878FP.
  • SHUT THE MACHINE OFF IF YOU EXPERIENCE A LOSS OF POWER IN YOUR FACILITY! This has to be done so injury occur when the power is restored.

Thank you for reading if you have any more questions regarding our equipment or with any safety questions go to our website by CLICK HERE or call us at (269) 382-2050.