Belt Sanders - the one power tool I won't be without!

[SLIMBOB]

Funny, that all these people from all over the planet develop a way of doing this and it can be so different from one person to the next.  I have access to several band saws and rarely use them.  I typically split mine with a wood chisel and then work it down from there with my belt sander.  First the front profile and then the thickness till it starts bending.  Then from there it's my draw knife, scraper and sanding block.  I'll use a rasp around the handle but I could live without one as my sander will shape it nicely.  I think the ability to be creative in so many ways is one of the things that draws me to this.

[George Tsoukalas]

I have a 6 x 48 and use it all the time. Jawge

[Dances with squirrels]

I don't have a belt/edge sander. I've made a PILE of bows of all types without one. I've carefully weighed the tool purchase decisions I've made so far, and the edge/belt sander has always been down the list a ways. Now that I'm tooled-up pretty good, I thought about maybe getting one, but I honestly don't know how much I'd use it. A lot of my bows are snakey, lumpy osage bows and all their bellies are radiused, so...

Even when the bellies are flat and straight, I won't tiller with a power tool. By the time a bow approaches my tillering tree, power tools are silent and still. I'm not in a hurry and I like working with hand tools, especially good sharp rasps and scrapers. To each their own though I guess. It's all bowmakin, so it's all good.

[Pappy]

Handy tool,really comes in handy for knife making,I don't use it much on bows except for tip shaping/over lays and sometimes a little in shaping the handle,never
use one tillering. Band saw is my main got to power tool for roughing one out then to the rasp and scraper for tillering.   Mine is always out side so dust ant much of a problem.
 Pappy

[Del the cat]

I have a 6 x 48 and use it all the time. Jawge

6x48 That's just showin' off now
I've only fairly recently got myself, a cheapy one which, like Toomanyknots I'm modified a bit

That reminds me, I also had trouble adapting my dust extractor to fit the belt sander. I used some plastic domestic waste water fittings in the end. When I connected it up there was't enough air flow and the BIG flexible hose concertina'd up and dragged the extractor across the floor!
I had to open up the air flow holes as much as possible and even then it needed a couple of air bleed holes drilled into the fittings. Without the air flow the extractor can overheat. I'll post a pic of what I did if it will be any help.

I'm slowly getting into it more and it's V handy for flattening tips and overlayes and takin' some waggles out of a profile (that's the waggles I don't want. Not the ones I've specially left in )
To me the bandsaw is the big labour (and elbow) saver.

Del

[Hrothgar]

Clearly a belt sander is the way to go. No wonder you guys can turn 'em out so fast! Working indoors I try to keep the dust to a minimal, but since it's  inevitable anyway...next paycheck.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Not me Howard! Hand tools=control=less mistakes=better bows! For me anyway.

[DarkSoul]

I only use a belt sander for creating small pieces of exotic wood for tip overlays, flattening the bow tip for the tip overlay, rough profiling of horn nocks, flattening bamboo backings and creating power lams. My actual laminations are made on a thickness planer (which I don't own, but I know where to find one nearby). For everything else I use hand tools. But the things I do on a belt sander, I could nearly impossibly do with any other tool. Or at least not nearly as quick!
But I think I need a new belt sander, because it appears my dad broke mine when he used it...

[WillS]

I had to choose really carefully when I decided to buy a power tool to help with making bows, and I didn't even consider a belt sander.  Regretting that now!

Although I did go for a really nice power planer which has made roughing out staves and hogging off huge amounts of wood incredibly quick and easy. 

[bubby]

I used to use mine for everything almost, then my nice big one took a dump, I use the portable one for tips, I can shape the handle faster with some rasps and mainly use my bandsaw, when I make lam bows I go to my in-laws rip them on the table saw and run them thru the surface planer to get them nice and flat

[toomanyknots]

I have a 6 x 48 and use it all the time. Jawge

6x48 That's just showin' off now
I've only fairly recently got myself, a cheapy one which, like Toomanyknots I'm modified a bit

That reminds me, I also had trouble adapting my dust extractor to fit the belt sander. I used some plastic domestic waste water fittings in the end. When I connected it up there was't enough air flow and the BIG flexible hose concertina'd up and dragged the extractor across the floor!
I had to open up the air flow holes as much as possible and even then it needed a couple of air bleed holes drilled into the fittings. Without the air flow the extractor can overheat. I'll post a pic of what I did if it will be any help.

I'm slowly getting into it more and it's V handy for flattening tips and overlayes and takin' some waggles out of a profile (that's the waggles I don't want. Not the ones I've specially left in )
To me the bandsaw is the big labour (and elbow) saver.

Del

I would love to see your pictures. I had trouble finding a good match of connectors to get a good fit on my belt sander. I had to use two different connector things. It still doesn't get good suction enough to get as much of the dust as I would want, a lot of it blows over the edge, which I think is what the edge guard was for, but I took it off to flatten laminates.

[Del the cat]

The end stop was sawn off and refitted just below the belt level so it didn't get in the way but it caught as much dust as possible.
The spigot had masking tape wrapped around it to make a good fit with the adaptor. The weight of the hose makes it all a bit wobbly, so the hose does need supporting. It doesn't stop all the dust but it does pretty well. Check the inside of the spigot on the sander is completely open. On this one it had a patern of about five small holes which was hopeless, I had to open right out to full bore.
Hope this gives some ideas.
Oh yeah, you can see the air bleed holes I had to drill on the blck plastic adaptor that came with the extractor... without those holes the suction was collapsing the hole and dragging the extractor across the floor!
Del

[toomanyknots]

Thanks! I had to remove the back guard of mine too! Thanks for the pictures!

[H Rhodes]

Not me Howard! Hand tools=control=less mistakes=better bows! For me anyway.

No argument on the control issue.  I have to admit that I buggered up a few staves by taking my tillering too far on the belt sander.  Now I go slightly beyond floor tiller and then get away from the power tools before I ruin one.   I have seen guys who are much more skilled than I am on the band saw dang near finish one out on the saw.  Trying that is when I invent a whole new realm of profanity and destroy potential bows.  Power tools are definately something to practice on with your less than stellar bow woods until you get some skills under your belt.  One second of inattention with any power tool can make stove wood.   If I have a particularly fine stave, I do find myself getting away from the sander earlier in the process.  PD is right on the money with the "Hand tools=control=less mistakes".   With my bad elbows, the sander just keeps me making bows by helping with the hogging off of the obvious areas where wood has got to be removed.  I haven't really been around many other bowyers and am looking forward to the classic and seeing the process that others use.   There are probably as many ways of building a bow as there are bowyers.  I love hearing about everyone else's methods.  I have only been doing this for a few years now (maybe 75 bows not counting the three I have going now...) and I seem to learn something new about it every day.   

[Badger]

  Self bows I use just a draw knife and scraper with some rasping around the handle. I use the belt sander on the tips to flatten them for overlays.
Laminated bows I do almost everything on the belt sander right down to 1 st stringing.