A belt sander is a machine used to sand

Sander

A sander is a power tool used to smooth wood and automotive or wood finishes by abrasion with sandpaper. Sanders have a means to attach the sandpaper and a mechanism to move it rapidly contained within a housing with means to hand-hold it or fix it to a workbench. Woodworking sanders are usually...

 down wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

 and other materials for finishing purposes. It consists of an electrical motor that turns a pair of drums on which a seamless loop of sandpaper

Sandpaper

Sandpaper, also known as glasspaper, is a heavy paper with abrasive material attached to its surface.Sandpaper is part of the "coated abrasives" family of abrasive products. It is used to remove small amounts of material from surfaces, either to make them smoother , to remove a layer of material...

 is mounted. Belt sanders can be either hand-held, where the sander is moved over the material, or stationary (fixed), where the material is moved to the sanding belt. Stationary belt sanders are sometimes mounted on a work bench, in which case they are called bench sanders. Stationary belt sanders are often combined with a disc sander

Sander

A sander is a power tool used to smooth wood and automotive or wood finishes by abrasion with sandpaper. Sanders have a means to attach the sandpaper and a mechanism to move it rapidly contained within a housing with means to hand-hold it or fix it to a workbench. Woodworking sanders are usually...

.

Belt sanders can have a very aggressive action on wood and are normally used only for the beginning stages of the sanding process, or used to rapidly remove material. Sometimes they are also used for removing paints or finishes from wood. Fitted with fine grit sand paper, a belt sander can be used to assure a completely smooth surface.

Stationary belt sanders are used for removing non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum. Non-ferrous metals tend to clog grinding wheel

Grinding wheel

A grinding wheel is an expendable wheel that is composed of an abrasive compound used for various grinding and abrasive machining operations...

s, quickly making them useless for grinding soft metals, while belt sanders continue to grind without clogging. This is because the small grooves in the sand paper are opened up as they go around the arc of the drive wheel.

Belt sanders can vary in size from the small hand-held unit shown in the illustration to units wide enough to sand a full 4-by-8 foot sheet of plywood

Plywood

Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...

 in a manufacturing plant. Some belt sanders can be as tall as 1.2 metres and 70 centimetres long.

Sanding wood produces a large amount of sawdust

Sawdust

Sawdust is a by-product of cutting lumber with a saw, composed of fine particles of wood. It can present a hazard in manufacturing industries, especially in terms of its flammability....

. Therefore, belt sanders employed in woodworking are usually equipped with some type of dust collection system

Dust collection system

A dust collection system is an air quality improvement system used in industrial, commercial, and home production shops to improve breathable air quality and safety by removing particulate matter from the air and environment. Dust collection systems work on the basic formula of CAPTURE, CONVEY and...

. It may be as simple as a cloth filter

Cloth filter

Developed for use in Bangladesh, the cloth filter is a simple and cost-effective appropriate technology method for reducing the contamination of drinking water...

 bag attached to a portable sander or a large vacuum system to suck dust particles away into a central collector.

Slack belt sanding is commonly used in the manufacturing process of guitars and other medium-sized wooden objects. It is a long sanding belt which runs slackly over the object. The machinist then exerts pressure to it to sand down specific areas. It is a very precise process which takes great skill and accuracy.

Racing

Belt sanders were one of the first power tools used in the growing field of power tool drag racing

Drag racing

Drag racing is a competition in which specially prepared automobiles or motorcycles compete two at a time to be the first to cross a set finish line, from a standing start, in a straight line, over a measured distance, most commonly a ¼-mile straight track....

 wherein a pair of stock or modified belt sanders are placed in parallel wooden channels and fitted with long extension cord

Extension cord

An extension cord, power extender, or extension lead is a length of flexible electrical power cable with a plug on one end and one or more sockets on the other end . The term usually refers to mains extensions but is also used to refer to extensions for other types of cabling...

s. Each heat begins when a common switch or individual switches triggered by the racers energizes them, causing the sanders to race towards the end of the track spitting wood dust along the way. Stock sanders race down a 50' long track, while modified sanders race on a 75' long track. Sanders of all shapes and sizes can go very fast, or very slow depending on the power of the motor. For example, some can go as fast as 5mph.