I would be inclined to leave with the belt horizontal and at the end of a bench so you can use the curved end for concave parts, you still have a fence you can set at 90 degrees.

As for motor 1/2 hp may be a tad small as my belt sander (wood) is 950w variable speed and runs at a higher speed, may be larger motor with speed control, slow speed for finishing and higher for material removal.

Bob

Just checked what mine is rigged with; it's a 0.75kW motor, so approximately 1HP (suspended underneath to tension the belt). I can bog this down – it's a 2×72" grinder – and there are times that 2HP might be better for removing steel. What I'd like to do is switch it to a VFD, but that will have to wait.

As for orientation, it depends what you want to do. For the work mine does, I use the contact wheel (effectively belt travelling vertical) or a flat vertical platen. This is for profiling and grinding bevels, amongst other things. If I wanted to flatten the bases of things, for example, I'd want a horizontal platen. Horses for courses.

I have no doubt that you already know, but just be careful what sort of vacuum cleaner you use. I had an interesting time with one , now ex. Brass in particular gets everywhere.

Looks like a handy machine Geoff, I have the Alfred Herbert version of this, about the same size but massive iron castings. The original base (without the stand) weighed about 150 kg, that was just to mount the motor on. Explains some of the adverts in the 50s and 60s, 'strong lad required'.

Dave

Here you go. This started out as a standard BDS250 but has been much modified. Belt changing was a bit of a pain before but now takes seconds.

The most difficult thing, will be to find belts for it !

Mine seemed quite happy running off a 1/3 rd HP, 1440 rpm "square" Hoover motor. M section pulleys were in the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 size range and gearing either 1:1 or up a little bit with the whole number pulley on the machine and the + 1/2" on the motor. Used what I had and, after 40 ish, years no chance of exact recall. Was advised to put the drive pulley at the opposite end to the motor so a relatively long belt was needed. Having over the years since seen considerable grief caused by eyeball engineered very short pulley centres and correspondingly titchy drive belts I figure the advice was good.

Cast in plain bearings and running spindles were well worn and very oval when I got it. Four top hat oilite bushes out of a bag of 50 from one of Friend Whistons Cat-a-Log mystery box specials plus a couple of nice ground round stock short ends from the main workshop scrap bin soon sorted that. Whist I was at it I fitted proper capped oilers (spares for top of chaincase on Suffolk Colt / Punch mowers) and made some longer bars to take a standard length abrasive belt. The centre boss and fixing screw on my belt drums was offset to one side. As obtained one side of the abrasive belt overhung the side of the table which looked far too much offset from the bearings which can't have helped wear rate. Flipping the belt drums on re-assembly bought them much further in partially overlapping the oil cups. Yup I know oilite isn't supposed to need lubrication but occasional anointment didn't seem to hurt.

Pretty sure that it was run too fast by previous users which coupled with the excess offset made for rapid wear. I now have a Draper belt and disk sander, got when a need for a disk sander arose contemporaneously with an offer I couldn't refuse from a workmate, which runs at 2,800 rpm and you could easily persuade me that is too fast. Belt life seens shorter with no corresponding uplift in in material removal rate.

Clive

I built one about twenty years ago for a friend who was making wooden toys, the belt was 150 mm wide x 1 metre between pulleys, the motor was either 1/4 hp or 1/3 hp, but it worked ok as long as sanding time was restricted to a few minutes at a time.

Ian S C

I used to have a belt sander that took 4" wide belts. It was very useful and had the charming name of "Willow Whipetoff"