In setting up a woodshop, I always thought I’d end up with the standard Norm setup — a belt/disk sander combo and a separate oscillating spindle sander — but I’ve read that the motors on the lower-end spindle units can stall out when sanding, and I can’t afford the $1,000+ high-end shop sanders. I read the reviews of this Ridgid oscillating edge belt/spindle sander and I had doubts about the belt sander part, but I figured at worst I’d end up with an affordable oscillating spindle sander.
The unit assembled easily. The sanders are square to the base at the 90 and 45 degree stops. A hand nut with a left-handed thread holds the spindle sander and the belt sander on — both units oscillate when running. Once I adjusted it, the tracking of the belt was true.
In operation I sanded some 3/4 and 12/4 oak. On the smaller stock I used both sanding units, and the performance was great, but you’ll need to hook up a shop vacuum or a dust collection system to keep the unit free of sawdust.
With the larger stock I was sanding down four identical 3/4″ pieces to the same dimensions; I taped the parts together with double-sided tape to get the 12/4 part. The sander would stall with very firm pressure, but these were pieces with a large contact area on the sander. The sanding job for the larger piece ran about 30 minutes with no problems that a belt cleaner couldn’t take care of.
I hear that it’s hard to find the sanding material. I found the spindle refills at Home Depot, but I didn’t see the belts there. I did find a 4×24 belt, but the joint feels like a speed bump when sanding. All parts fit neatly on the tool.
The sander sells for $200 at Home Depot.
Oscillating Edge Belt/Spindle Sander [Ridgid]
Street Pricing [Google]
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5 Responses to Ridgid Oscillating Edge Belt/Spindle Sander
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I’ve got this same sander. I’ve had it for almost 3 years with no issues. I should mentioned that it hasn’t had a huge workload. I use it for small projects. I’ve fount it very useful for squaring up the ends of a pen blank after gluing in a new tube. IMO, the only fault on this machine is the lack of a miter gauge. It has a groove in the table top for one, so why not include it.
I have one and love it and am happy I didn’t get a belt/disc type for a little less. Since I travel I purchased my belts somewhere out of state. Check the Ridgid forum at their website. There are sources listed in some of the threads of where to purchase refills.
I have one and I like it. Stores under the workbench when not in use, dust collection works like a charm.
Since I purchased one of these, I haven’t taken my disc/belt sander off the shelf.
This is essentially a small-sized low cost edge sander. Edge sanders carrying the Powermatic, Jet, and Grizzly brands are offered in much larger sizes – but are for the most part impractical for the home shop and too large to bring out onto most job sites.
The same is true for shop-sized oscillating spindle sanders.
We often find that the Porter Cable 121 portable spindle sander is handy in our countertop work – and have created a jig to hold it upside down so it can work as stationary tool on the job site. I think that I recall seeing a commercially-made plate (maybe from Woodpeckers ) to hold this sander in a router table.
We also have a few jigs to hold belt sanders in similar fashion – so that they can do double duty on the jobsite. We have mostly old PC / Rockwell belt sanders – but I recall that Dewalt made a frame to hold their 433 belt sander.