Homebrew Attachment Turns Angle Grinder Into Slimline Belt Sander

If there’s a small power tool as hackable as the angle grinder, we haven’t found it yet. These versatile tools put a lot of power in the palm of your hand, and even unhacked they have a huge range of functionality, from cutting to grinding to polishing and cleaning, just by choice of what goes on the arbor.

With a simple homebrew attachment, [Darek] turned his angle grinder into a micro-belt sander that’s great for those hard-to-reach places. The attachment that clamps where the disc guard normally lives adds a drive roller to the grinder’s arbor; idler rollers ride on the end of a small pneumatic spring that keeps the belt under tension. The belts themselves are cut down from wider sanding belts, and the attachment can take belts of various widths. And best of all, he did it all without any fancy machine tools. No lathe? No problem – the drive roller was ground to the proper crowned profile needed to keep belts centered using the angle grinder itself. The only problem we see is that the attachment can’t be easily removed from the grinder, but that’s OK. Grinders are like potato chips, after all – you can’t stop at one.

This isn’t [Darek]’s first angle grinder hacking rodeo, of course. And if you’re looking for inspiration on how to hack yours, look no further: a floor sander, a precision surface grinder, or even an e-bike can be built.

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