504 gone forever?

[Karl Brogger]

These were the best belt sanders ever made. Hands down.



I can't believe they aren't made any more. I think they were about $850 new, but worth every penny.

[Curt Harms]

Un Black & Decker-like, perhaps.

[john blanchard]

I have my dads that dates back to 60's or more i think, it is a brute, it was our only sander for 15 years before i got my own makita. tough as nails.

[Alan Schaffter]

You can't ride that to the Bahamas anyway.

Is your boat ready for the new season?

[Karl Brogger]

Holy hell! Asshafter. Small interweb isn't it? I've been lurking around here for a bit. Haven't seen your name pop up on the Hobie forum for a while. I've gotta move the cabinet shop some time in the future, I may just try out your PVC/dust collection idea. We'll see if it explodes when it runs for 8-10 hours every day. My boat is still sitting in storage. It will be for at least another three weeks, at least..... There's 22" of ice on the lakes yet, and we've had snow all day today. blah...

On the belt sander, this really boils my blood. There is no belt sander better than this model. It weighs a freakin' ton, and never breaks. They wear out, they get rebuilt and they're ready for more abuse. I was poking around looking for a good place to buy a second one, so I could send the one I have now to get some much needed attention only to find out they aren't made. Life is so unfair. Time to search ebay.

[Randal Stevenson]

Ok, but how does it do at the belt sander races?

[David DeCristoforo]

"...how does it do at the belt sander races?"

It will most assuredly finish last. But at the "Monster Sander" rally it rules! The nice thing about this machine is that it's heavy enough that you do not have to bear down at all. As long as you can hang on to it, you're good.

YM

PS Not good for overhead work....

[Gary Breckenridge]

It looks like, is as strong as and is as heavy as a locomotive.

[Brad Townsend]

At $850 a copy, I would imagine the market was quite small.

[Bob Aquino]

I had an older 503. Picked it up at a neighbors garage sale for 10 bucks. It sat in a cabinet for 7 years and I finally pulled it out, cleaned it up and sold it on the bay for about 300. Yeah, its a tank all right, but I can tell you the number of times I have pulled out a belt sander of any kind in the last several years has been very small. There are just better alternatives nowadays. Drum sanders do much better on cleaning up large panels quickly and the heavy duty 6" random orbit sanders like the Rotax or my Bosch 1250 can make pretty short work of rough sanding without the likeliness of gouging the work and with some pretty good dust collection to boot.

Some folks wax poetic about the RAS too, not me, there are too many good alternatives to that tool too.

[Dick Bringhurst]

What length belt did that sander use? Dick B.

[Karl Brogger]

3X24 Belt. I use it daily. It's probably the most used small power tool I have. For finished ends, flush trim, belt sand, RO, done. I do the same thing with shelves, which for the kitchens I build is every single shelf. For drawers I belt the top and bottom edges to get them flush, and get kerf marks out, and I belt the sides to get them flush, and fill any gaps in the dovetails. A little glue and a dust from a belt sander is great on the go fill.


I'm genuinely pissed it isn't made anymore.