Side by Side Comparison of: Generic vs Grizzly

I saw a few negative reviews but, it works fine. jammed wood hard against it and it did not bog down. you will have to push the belt a little the first time you run it to loosen up the packing grease.

works great, heavy, sturdy, portable, video to follow.

Works great and the price was very reasonable.

what a awesome sander, first it does't vibrate around sands everything i need it to do its made from cast metal with a plastic belt cover which is easily removed

Tough little belt sander easy to set up and change belts in the middle of a job, works as advertised just love it thanks.

Good quality tool. Doesn't back down. Used on several projects. Wood, shaping aluminum flat bar, sharpening knives axes tools like machetes and bamboo cutter (special machete) spear tip and steel arrowheads for shop built flight arrows and crossbow builts

Excellent service, excellent product...

This was a cheap investment and I I got more than I expected. It does a fine job and is much quieter than the screamer it replaced. I use it mostly for little touch ups and it has performed well. It does not move when simply set on the bench. My little dust connection is one and one quarter inch and my large connection is 3". This has a port somewhere in the middle, that's my only beef with this unit. One review stated there was too much plastic. The only plastic is shielding and the second rate table guide - but what do you expect with this price. It's a hard worker and runs steady while sitting still on the bench - I got my money's worth and it was all I wanted.

Wonderful starter for price. I use it to make knives has plenty of power and can make precise bevels. With the right belts it just eats material when needed. And precise finish work as well

I've searched a long time for a small sander like this. This one is high quality and a perfect size for miniature woodworking. I build museum quality tall ship models entirely from wood, which requires much sanding and shaping, the perfect tool for me. I have numerous sanders in my inventory, this one replaces most of them in one small package.

So I thought I might be interested in knife making, and while there are many methods for grinding the blade the smart money seems to be on using a belt grinder. For various reasons. So I tried it, Lo and behold I liked it and decided to pursue it. This grinder is the best (cheapest) way to see if this hobby is for you. There are a good variety of belts available for it and they are inexpensive. That being said you will burn through them very quickly. The machine is pretty roundly trashed on the blogs it is loud and clanky, very under-powered and the work surfaces are not meant for serious use, e.g. are not smooth and cannot be properly leveled. All of this is true. So why did I give it 5 stars? Well, for 129USD you can find out if this is worth pursuing before you drop 2500 on a Burrking or even 700 on the 2x72 grizz. I have subsequently upgraded and my 1x30 still sees a lot of use lately I have been keeping a surgi-sharp honing belt on it and using it to but a razor edge on the knives that I make and even those I did not. It's a great machine as long as you know it's limitations.

I bought this for spare time hobby knife-making. It's awesome. I haven't yet been able to choke out the motor and get it to stop by pressing too hard on the belt. I used a little delta of about the same size at a friend's house, and though it also performed admirably, it reached it's maximum torque frequently.There's some plastic on this thing that you'll want to be careful with. It will break. The moving parts--motor, etc--are all metal. but the tightening wheels and levers are a sort of heavy duty plastic that you'll break off if you push them too hard. Be cautious, and they will last forever. Even if you break them, you can still use the very solid metal bolt that the plastic attaches to, it just won't be as convenient.I was surprised that it came with a belt and sanding disk so I could plug it in and try it out immediately. Lots of power, and it's nice and quiet, as well as well-balanced. It doesn't shake or rattle, just purrs. This unit only weighs about 20 pounds, but its enough to hold it steady, which is a must for me, since I have no work bench, and must move this outside to use it, then move it back inside to keep it dry.A wider belt is much better for most types of sanding, but honestly, if you pay attention to what you're doing, and space is an issue (as well as cost) this little belt/disk sander is pretty amazing. I would highly recommend this hobby sander to anyone.

Great little sander, just a little bit louder than I thought it would be.

Works as expected. Very good for simple sharpening.

The main pulley wheel is horribly unbalanced which causes so much vibration. Even after loosening the bolt holding down the tensioner springs so the spring can do its job doesn't help.

It is just right for what I bought it to do. I installed a leather honing belt and use it to hone my carving tools.

I got it quickly, 95% assembled and ready to go. The motor is a little weak you have to help it but once it starts it works just fine. I am very happy with it.

A little smaller than expected should do OK for Light work

Works. Had a bit of rust on it. Metal roller wheels make this better than some others I have seen.

The plastic handle for the belt sanding table stripped immediately but it's not a big deal, I just use a pair of pliers to adjust it. I also had to make a bushing for the belt guide adjustment (I cut it out of an old bicycle inner tube) works awesome now.

As with most tools like this, it takes quite a bit of tweaking to get it running perfectly. Works great as is, but take the time to align and adjust.. It could use a variable speed or stepped pulley system. I have mine hooked up to a variac. Not sure if this will kill the motor in the long run. I like to use a leather belt at about 1/4 of the speed this gives. I also modified the mount so I could swing the disk sander to horizontal for sharpening & polishing wide blades. Not ideal, but it works.

So far so good. Arrived quickly and was as expected. Construction is only ok, but I expected that for the price. Looked fine though and works as good as I'd have hoped.

Everything on this sander works as expected. The belt is a little small, but I can't blame the tool, it is what it is. Setup was simple and hanging out the sandpaper is easy.My only complaint is that the extemporaneous stuff is kind of....cheap. But the sander is cheap, so I didn't expect much. 4 stars for delivering what you promised at a reasonable price. Not 5 stars because some of the plastic could have easily (and cheaply) been metal.

Got this sander several months ago and have used it fairly heavily. I can say it is pretty durable is I keep it on my back porch next to my forge. handles light to medium sanding jobs rather well and works good for rough honing of cutting tools such as axes and lawnmower blades.If given a chance, I would upgrade to a larger sander, but for the money, this tool works goodOn the negative side, it does have a habit of building up alot of static shock. not a huge issue for me, but it could be a safety concern. I also had to grind the belt table a bit to allow the belt to run freely in the table's groove. took 2 minutes and the machine runs good.Overall, This is a decent value, but someone with a few tools like a welder could easily build a better one for around the same price.

It works well enough, but pretty well for the cost.See, I'm torn here. Ordered this up as more of an impulse buy than anything else. And for the price, it works pretty well. But the part that holds the wheels the belt attaches to leans, badly, to the right. It's actually off by a good 10 degrees. This ended up making the belt chew about 1/2" off of the opening from the table (tool support included). And while it works pretty well after drastically increasing the size of the opening, it does mean the belt doesn't actually sit entirely on the vertical brace that stands behind the belt. I did find that this lack of support makes for some amazing rounded corners where the sander should not be able to make them. So there is a minor perk to this thing being warped as badly as it is. So I'm still torn. I like it. But I hate it. But then it's fairly inexpensive so I shouldn't expect much. YMMV.

Ok for price.

had to do some work to it to get it running but once I did, it runs great.

not allot of torque, but for the price it is a great deal. Can always bolt a stronger motor in the same motor mounts later on.

The belts for this sander don't fit it well and they are sanding away the safety guide.

not the greatest belt sander. belt will track correct. guess you get what you pay for.

i had to replace the brushes--kept shocking me.

Good for the price and shipping was great. Probably need a little more heavy duty one for my usage.

For the price it works fine. It runs like it's about to fly apart at any minute though. Very noisy and not balanced well, vibrates a lot even when held down. The fence and tables are cheap, don't count on accuracy...just a decent sanding device. Sanding strips are ok for changing, not necessarily easy, disc changes are clumsy.

I bought this grinder as a beginning knife maker. It certainly was a step up from using hand files. However over time I found that my knives kept ending up at the same way with different types of bevels on each side. I thought it was what I was doing incorrectly. But after the fourth one I found out that it was due to the machine. No matter what I did I could not get the belt to track on the right side of the work platten. I was able to overlap the belt on the left side but not the right side so my bevels would have never been the same. If I had to do it over I would save up more and purchase the bigger grizzly grinder made just for knife making. That is my suggestion to go to that rather than settle for this. However if you are unsure if you want to get into knife making dropping a little over $100 into this is not a bad experiment. I can still use it for aspects of knife making and for around the house projects but for grinding bevels on the knife it will not work very well at all.

1. The yellow handle for the Belt Sander table is made of plastic and could break off.They should have made it out of metal like the other 2 that are used for the disc sander table.2. The Belt Sander table tends to move down. I'm not sure how to stop it other then to take offthe handle and use pliers on it.3. You will get shocks but it is from static build up while sanding. What I do is just keep one hand on the table.4. There are 2 ports that you can hook up a Shop Vac to collect dust with instead of getting all over your shop/ house /porch.5. The Disc table has a slot for a guide that turns up to 45° for angle sanding. There is no T slot or Dove tail for it so it will just fall right off.It also vibrates and makes a lot of noise. I found it to be useless. They should have at least cut T-Slots in the table for the guide like on a JET belt and disc sander.6. Belt is 80 Grit and the Disc is 220 Grit.7. Good Paint Job.Over all it does the job. Is it worth 140 bucks? Not in my opinion. This thing is worth half that.Now if they would have made it all metal construction, better handles and a T-Slot in the Disc Sander table thenI'd have given it 5 stars. Cheap cheap cheap Chinese cheap in the USA.

The belt broke on me on the first use (machine is good but the sand paper broke at the seam). The two platforms are difficult to level and will move if you put the smallest amount of pressure on them. This is a decent starter sander, but probably not great for high quality projects.

Just received this and firstly the entire table assembly is missing. Next it would not turn the belt at all, the motor was froze up. I had to keep turning the belt until it "broke loose" and then it turned OK. The adjustable plate the belt spins against had two Allen set screws and only one was usable the other was crossed threaded and would not work. I just chose to keep it rather than go through the hassle of returning as I didn't really need the table I just wanted to freehand sharpening knifes with it anyway. It will sharpen the hell out of a knife with 400 grit belt.

I bought this belt sander for a couple knife projects I made and other small projects. I will say the first year it would good, and the second year, (ya not the fast knife maker in the world) this sander lost its ground and started shocking me when ever it wanted. I got my projects done, and now currently looking for a replacement belt sander. You get for what you pay for.

Great for minor repairs or small project's .....not for any knife making ....extremely weak

Decent while it lasted, broke after 3 months. Typical "made in china" machinery.

Pros: It's painted green. The motor operates. Thus far there have been no dismemberments or fatalities resulting from its use.Cons: because Harbor Freight was sold out of this sander, I opted to spend the additional money for the identical item from this company. Shipping was slow. The attachment hole to the bed was not even drilled, let alone tapped. Thus the bed can't be attached. It's as though this was a factory reject.I purchased this through Amazon and this revue does not reflect on them.

Too small, sent it back and got the larger one.

I don't get the other reviews, all around this was a very poor quality product.The belt starting sliding off the pulley after a couple weeks, and it would do that no matter how tight.The gap is so close between the disc and the disc tray, there is no adjustment, and to remove that tray the disk is completely in the way, I had to use need nose pliars to thread the awkward bolts in and out, so odd, opposed to just making them in a position you can simply put them in and tighten them. Mine came with different parts assembled than what the directions expected and told you to put together so I "winged' it, the tray do move in the unidirectional pattern allowing different angles, sure that can be nice but they should have a natural fitting as well that is just "level", parallel to the ground, they "don't" I had to use a "leveler" to do this and make them both level.I sword I wouldn't waste time on this review and say "trust me it's bad" but I can't help complain because it sucks.On a positive note I would say the disc performs the best, it would grind well but it was weak, easy to stop.Both the belt and the disc can be stopped by their trays if you don't really "pay attention" I just don't get why that's even possible for them to touch the sanders and block them from moving, seems like a basic fail safe, good design, that it wouldn't be possible and you couldn't do that if you tried.I'm sorry but I can't say much good, again the disc would grind well, the belt was much weaker but since it was slippery you wouldn't have the worry about it getting stuck, the disc got stuck often. but the belt started sliding off the guide/track to the point where about half of it or less was on the top pulley and that metal backing piece to use as a wedge was useless since the belt was over extended to the right.this is the first tool from Amazon I returned without exchanging, I always exchange, I give the product the benefit of the doubt, but this one was so bad, had so many clear design issues, there was no point in wasting more time and getting more gray hairs.

I don't know why all the rave reviews (?). There visibly is an structural problem in the way these shafts are not in parallel with each other that causes the belt not to align with the belt support, no matter how I adjust the belt tension! This tells me it's not carefully engineered and with no quality control.

UPDATE:I contacted Grizzly by telephone (Amazon did not fulfill the order)and explained in detail my complaints as I did in my review below. Grizzly's Representative could care less. My issue about quality fell on deaf hears. If I was not happy I could return it. However, there would be a restocking fee and I would have to pay for return shipping. In addition, if I used the machine (even for 10 minutes to see if I liked it) they would not refund my money and I would have to pay for shipping back to me. I have learned my lesson about buying tools from Grizzly. The tools are now Chinese junk and Grizzly will not stand behind their products.ORIGINAL REVIEW:First off the sander took 10 days to be delivered after I placed my order. I then opened the package and found I had to assemble the tables on the disc and belt sections of this machine. This would have been OK but the design of the how the tables attach was poorly thought out. My 10 year old could have designed it better.First you have to remove the disc sander guard to install the table. The table is an easy 1/2" wider then the disc guard and makes a very sloppy fit. The disc guard Allen bolts are extremely difficult to install and tighten once the table is installed to guard because the table pivot area is now on top of where the Allan bolts are to attach.When the dust collector cover is installed for the disc sander there is a 1/8" gap between the base and the dust cover. So, most of the dust comes out of this gap and not out the round fitting for the vacuum.The square provided for the disc sander table is not usable. The slot for the square is painted and binds with the stamped steel rail. The stamped steel rail was not de-burred and prevents a smooth movement of the square. The screw used to tighten the angle sticks out the bottom of the square slide so it scraps and digs into the bottom of the slot for the square rail.Both tables have rough surfaces and make it difficult to slide the material you are sanding.The sanding belt for the belt section sits a good 1/8" from the backing plate. So you can never get a square edge if a pressure is applied.This is rough made machine. Poorly designed. Cannot provide accurate sanding.Not worth it at half the price.I am returning to Amazon.

Arrived missing one foot so it doesn't sit level.no contact information in manual.

40 days and still no package-hope it works

The handle which is supposed to tighten the metal platform was totally defective. Now I must use a vise grip to tighten the bolt each time.This was not an oversight.

Total piece of crap! The adjustment knob's plastic stripped, and the knob fell off, the first time I tightened the belt. I drilled and pinned it. The backing bar cut the belt. I smoothed and shaped it. Now, with less than half an hour of use, pulley bearings are howling. I'll probably end up taking the motor off and using it for something else, and relegating this thing to the scrap heap, which seems to be its design spec.

belt tension unit too tight-had to dissamble machine to loosen tension axle-- tracking knob broke from adjusting screw after first attempt to adlust

motor on belt sander has no power use it in woodworking appication when you use it belt & motor slow & stop

I had two of them freeze up and stop working within months. They're total garbage, will never buy this brand again for any reason.

This unit came damaged. It wouldn't run and when I investigated it was because the belt was jammed between a pulley and the housing. I tried to adjust the tracking to no avail and then discovered that the entire belt guard appeared bent so the top pulley would not line up. The belt safety cover was broken in several pieces. Not sure whether the problem is design, packing or quality control but I returned it for refund. Not even interested in trying a replacement.

Product was packaged as if from the manufacturer (re-packaged after previous return?) but was damaged upon arrival and missing about half the hardware to put it together. In addition to some cosmetic damage the internal drive wheel (see pics) was nearly stripped out and was still installed at a misaligned angle. This item was partially assembled when it arrived out of the box but the unassembled components were in new and stapled shut plastic bags. I could have put together the rest and never seen the damaged drive wheel under a safety cover. SAFETY - If I had operated this machine as it was the damaged wheel (when it broke apart) could have seriously injured me or others nearby. Where is the QAQC for inspecting these items before shipping them out? I am returning it for a NEW item (as I paid for!) and will follow up after it arrives.

Mine arrived missing many of the necessary bolts, and all of the necessary washers. I had it long enough to see how cheaply it was made so in a way I'm not all that sorry to have sent it back. It had obviously been repackaged and resold; this has happened numerous times. You have to wonder why it had been returned the first time?

UPDATE 6-21-2014: Got the replacement from Amazon today. Same exact issue. I believe it to be a design flaw or quality control issue. Looking to replace it, hoping to get a credit to get a different device.Purchased this product for my husband's Christmas present in November 2013. The first time he used it, he noticed that he got a small shock. He thought it was due to the material, and static in the air. After that, he did not get a chance to use it again until May of this year (2014). The sander shocked him on turning it on and off, as well as on any usage.He contacted Grizzly to get a repair / replacement under the one year warranty. They came back and told him that they would not honor the warranty, as he did not buy it direct from them, but rather that it came through Amazon. They sent an email to him, explaining that Amazon was the "First and original owner" and would only honor the warranty if Amazon contacted them. He then called and spoke to their Customer service, who said the same thing, going further explaining that they did not have any resellers or distributors, and that the ONLY time warranties were honored, was if it was sold and shipped from Grizzly. In cases where Amazon says "Sold by Grizzly and Full Filled by Amazon", the warranty is not honored as well.Thankfully, Amazon was very understanding, that a tool should not shock you on use, and is sending another. Unfortunately until we get a new one and see if the issue still exists, the device is rated one star. Grizzly service and warranty is a joke. I would suggest buying another brand and product, unless you do not care about repairs.Actual quality of the work on sanding wood, the Belt pulled a lot more than was expected, while the disk pulled less. This was using the same grit of sand paper on each. Expected more consistency. Rate this on par with the Harbor Freight device that I had used prior. Both did a poor job.

I received the product from Grizzly, spent a lot of time setting it up because of the way it is designed. When I started it I realized that I couldn't get the belt to track. It turned out that the arm which holds the belt assembly wasn't installed correctly and was not perpendicular. I began to wonder if I was the first person to get this piece of equipment because of the way it was packaged. Contacted the company and quite frankly all they were concerned about was that if I returned it there would be charges including a 10% restocking fee. Didn't care about resolving the issue with the product and getting another one. So I am in the process of returning it and taking a hit.