WEN 6524 Oscillating Belt and Spindle Sander

When you want to approach an inside curve on a piece of wood this is the way to go. I should have bought this along time ago as they are not really that expensive. I chose the one with the belt not just for the belt but because it had a wider table. And I was right the water table makes things more stable for larger pieces, It is not heavy so you can carry it around quite easily I think it weighs about 30 pounds.

I got this to help with quickly shaping my first guitar build. I’ve since used it for other woodworking projects and a second guitar. I don’t think this model is meant for heavy duty work, but I don’t think the Ridgid version is either. So do use all your might to push your material into it. Let the machine do the work. So for hobby work, even occasional luthiery, it’s amazing. If it failed today I could safely say I got my money’s worth from it.

For the most part, this has been working ok for me. I haven't used it a lot, but so far, it's gotten the job done.I had to 3D print an adapter to be able to hook up to a standard 2" vacuum hose. You would think they could have included one of those. No big deal when you have a 3D printer though.It's noisier than I had hoped. It has a universal motor, so that's to be expected, I guess. Between the motor on this and the whine of a shop vac, sanding is an "ear-protection required" job. I usually wear noise cancelling headphones and listen to some tunes while I sand. :-)It's not super rigid. If you really try to press on it, you can deflect the belt/spindle. Of course, it also doesn't have a lot of power, so you'll more likely stall it before that becomes an issue. The key is to take light passes to avoid overworking it.As near as I can tell there isn't really any way to adjust it perpendicular to the table, other than maybe shimming the table. But fortunately, mine is pretty close and I haven't had to do anything to it.The only thing that kind of bothers me is it's a little bit "thump thumpy" as the belt goes over the backing plate. You can feel it in your workpiece every time it goes around. I think it is because the screws holding the backing plate sit just a little proud of the plate itself and when the belt seam passes over it gets kicked out a little. I can probably solve it by countersinking the holes a little deeper or grinding a little off the heads of the screws, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Might just be the belts they give you too.None of those things are showstoppers though.It's nice that it has storage for all the accessories, although I ended up building a mobile base for mine and keep it all in drawers now. If you wanted to mount it to one of those turntable stands where you can mount 2-3 tools opposite each other like a lot of people seem to do, you won't be able to use the accessory holders...there is nothing keeping anything in place except gravity, so if you spin it upside down, they will all fall out.The price is good. It was the cheapest I found that could change between belt and spindle.As long as it lasts, I'm happy with it. It certainly works better than the cheap sanding drum in the drill press that I was using before.

Gift for husband who lives for wooden working & he's happy so Im happy.

Love it. Great addition to my growing tool collection

Love this win oscillating sander, it works great and from what I’m told most of these sanders are made by the same manufacture, but just have different names put on them. I’ve been using it now for a couple of weeks and it seems to have plenty of power and functions really well. I would recommend this to other woodworkers.

The media could not be loaded. Oh, this is a great value for the price. I recommend buying some extra sanding, drums, and various grit just around it out, but for the money this thing is amazing.Good quality parts with a pretty solid construction at this price point. Naturally, I’m sure there is better out there at higher price points, but for an entry-level machine, this thing is a beastWith the belt sander and the drum sander together in one machine it’s a real space saver, which is nice for my little workshop as every bit of space is important.Pros:*Compact design safe space.*Dust removal port works brilliantly*After many hours of use it has performed reliably, and appears to be pretty rugged.*Great value and better than expected quality for this price point*Built-in storage for accessories is extremely helpful.Cons:*Sometimes difficult to get the correct angle (I carve guitar necks and sometimes I need to get extreme angles to sand, and while the table tilts down it still gets in the way. I’m not sure if this is unique to my needs, but I thought it was worth mentioning)* Easy to lose the little washers that secure the sanding drums.*The unit will sometimes slide when I am applying pressure to the word piece against the sanding belt (the feet could be stickier, but I will probably put a rubber mat underneath it, and that should fix the problem).The pros far outweigh the cons and I realize I’m being pretty nitpicky with those cons but I felt like I had to put something in there to balance it out, I have a fairly well stocked home shop and have been building guitars for several years, semi professionally out of all my tools, there are a handful of machines that are instrumental to building everything from Guitars to furniture to whatever assorted projects I come up with and this is definitely one of them.10/10 would recommend! If you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them and I have an unboxing in video on Rumble. I tried to post it here, but it appears it was too large.I hope this was helpful and leave a thumbs up if you found this review useful! Cheers and best of luck to you and your future projects!