WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

Linda Reed · Post by **Linda Reed** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:22 am

Hello All,

New wet belt sander. No water in studio. I've read the old archives. Most people seem to use a bucket above and gravity water through fittings to the water input for the WBS. A couple of questions to those of you who have either done this or who think in mechanical thoughts;

If I put a bucket above (maybe in a wood box on a pully supported by the beams? So I don't have to keep a ladder there all the time?) how long does say, 5 gallons of water last? Is there a way to know how much water is left without climbing up and peering in? (Besides no more coming out...)

Does any one have a problem with mosquitos by leaving water in open buckets?

What about using a pump? My tile saw uses a parts washer pump (or something like that) and just takes the water from the tray... would using the old water again for the wet belt sander ruin the belts and negate the sanding? Even if you pulled it from the reletively clean top of the bucket? What about a clean water and a dirty water bucket on the floor and a pump? (Can you tell how excited I am about carting water to a bucket over my head??)

Any other ideas short of plumbing the studio?

Whiny girl,
Linda

Brock · Post by **Brock** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:27 am

Hey Linda, just run a hose to it. Brock

Paul Tarlow · Post by **Paul Tarlow** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 1:07 am

A fountain pump will work -- just make sure there is sufficient head to get the water up to where you need it.

Search google for "fountain pump"

- Paul

Ron Coleman · Post by **Ron Coleman** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 8:08 am

Linda

I ended up using a plastic crate and a small aquarium pump for my sander.

The red crate holds about 10 gallons of water. The sander drains into the bucket.

Not sure what sander you have but a small pump doesn't have enough pressure to make the spray heads on mine spray. They just squirt water in little streams.

My pump is like the Rio style and cost about $20. Note the head numbers across the top of the list, that is how high the pump will push the water.
http://www.aquatictech.com/pumps.html

As for reusing the water, even after sitting for a while the water still has a lot suspended junk in it. I just use mine once and dump it.

As for bugs in the water, I'm still waiting for strange things to start showing up in my system. I keep the drain bucket empty and the lid closed on the supply tank and so far nobody has set up housekeeping.

Ron

John · Post by **John** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 8:37 am

That's a nice sander Ron,

Linda, if you go the pump option make sure the pump is off the bottom enough so that it doesn't suck the silt through your pump if you decide to recycle the water. Your pump may not like glass paticles.

Cynthia · Post by **Cynthia** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 2:09 pm

I'm lazy too. But you have to have clean water, not recirculated for your WBS. I just have a step stool sitting under the table the WBS sits upon and I fill the bucket above with old gallon juice jugs that I fill a few gallons at a go. I use warm water, so want to fill the supply bucket anyway for each session. I let the remainder drain off so I am not so worried about growing wildlife in the supply container. I don't drain my bucket I use as a catch basin and have always let those fill with sludge and use as a depository for fiberpapers too. I will remove excess standing water only if I need room to catch more. I live in a very dry climate though, so any standing water has a chance to evaporate off within days anyway.

To me, setting up a pump system seems like a lot of work, and you have to get water to the studio somehow anyway (if you aren't going to plumb it)...so for me the gravity system works well and the step stool is always under the table and filling a jug or two is simple. I'm not cold working on a daily basis either though...

I don't like recirculating the sludgey water in any of my tools. I use a basin of fresh water for my tile saw so I am always cutting with clean water (personal foible).

For polishing though, you really don't want to recirculate grit from previous grinding back on the glass surface as you work to finer and finer grinding/polishing belts. I want a reasonably clean environment, free of abrasives that might ruin the polishing I've already accomplished. That would be my caveat against recirculating your water.

Hope you find the right solution for your needs.

Barbara Muth · Post by **Barbara Muth** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 2:49 pm

John wrote:That's a nice sander Ron,

Linda, if you go the pump option make sure the pump is off the bottom enough so that it doesn't suck the silt through your pump if you decide to recycle the water. Your pump may not like glass paticles.

John, you should look through the archives for Ron's series on this sander. The bofore and after pictures are something to behold!

Barbara

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 3:09 pm

Linda Reed wrote:Hello All,

New wet belt sander. No water in studio. I've read the old archives. Most people seem to use a bucket above and gravity water through fittings to the water input for the WBS. A couple of questions to those of you who have either done this or who think in mechanical thoughts;

How about a hose running from your house supply, supplying a header tank similar to a toilet flushing system?

As the water level goes down, the float valve dips and it refills to the 'full' level.

No pumps, just gravity.

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 3:12 pm

Paul Stevenson wrote:How about a hose running from your house supply, supplying a header tank similar to a toilet flushing system?

As the water level goes down, the float valve dips and it refills to the 'full' level.

No pumps, just gravity.

what happens when one forgets to turn off the hose and the overflow bucket fills?

Linda Reed · Post by **Linda Reed** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:48 pm

Thank you all. That was exactly the advice I needed. I will go shopping this weekend and get it rigged.

Thanks Ron for posting the picture. Pictures are good for my particular style of (mis)understanding! (Although I understand the step stool and gallon jug thing too, thanks Cynthia! If I did that I would have to build something to suspend the bucket. The wall behind the sander is concrete. Laze once again enters the picture. Although it might be interesting to build a pulley system from the beam above. Kind of like a tree house lift...).

I will not use recirculated water. I was guessing that that would be the case.

I will put running a water supply to the studio at the end of my long list of property improvements needed. Until then, I guess I will go with the pump ala Ron/et al. We'll see what serindipity and the hardware/aquarium/harbor freight stores have to offer this weekend on a shopping spree.

No matter the format, I really like this board!

Linda

David Williams · Post by **David Williams** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:35 pm

charlie wrote:
Paul Stevenson wrote:How about a hose running from your house supply, supplying a header tank similar to a toilet flushing system?

As the water level goes down, the float valve dips and it refills to the 'full' level.

No pumps, just gravity.
what happens when one forgets to turn off the hose and the overflow bucket fills?

Brock is right for petesake just run a hose. Go to the section of the home depot where they have the little compresion fittings and poly tubing usually used for ice makers. Tell the helpful guy there you want to reduce down from a garden hose and that you need a shut off. If your sander doesn't already have a hookup you can run it into a piece of soft copper or poly tubing that you can bend to shoot where you want. Outflow into a bucket, then just flip the water on at the shutoff and start working. Simplify your studio where you can. If you start selling alot you'll be glad you don't have to spend so much time and money maintaining stuff.

Brian and Jenny Blanthorn · Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:55 am

David Williams wrote:
charlie wrote:
Paul Stevenson wrote:How about a hose running from your house supply, supplying a header tank similar to a toilet flushing system?

As the water level goes down, the float valve dips and it refills to the 'full' level.

No pumps, just gravity.
what happens when one forgets to turn off the hose and the overflow bucket fills?

Brock is right for petesake just run a hose. Go to the section of the home depot where they have the little compresion fittings and poly tubing usually used for ice makers. Tell the helpful guy there you want to reduce down from a garden hose and that you need a shut off. If your sander doesn't already have a hookup you can run it into a piece of soft copper or poly tubing that you can bend to shoot where you want. Outflow into a bucket, then just flip the water on at the shutoff and start working. Simplify your studio where you can. If you start selling alot you'll be glad you don't have to spend so much time and money maintaining stuff.

I did suffer many years with hosepipes

Last year I sepnt some time n Â£Â£Â£ on plumbin

I used nearly 50 meters of pipe incomming

Got lots of taps n lots drains

Saves so much time

U do need traps as the grit settles solid

Although currently working on

Softa Settle tm

This ground breaking top secret technology being developed at my seaside research facility

Uses soaked news paper I add this 2 the flat bed grit n in2 the diomond saw

Early tryals indicate waste is a lot softer

One thing with the saw I use water + a bit of thin oil

Then spray it all with oil when I finish ( saw )

Getting back 2 the hose pipe they do have a nasty habit of blowing off the taps as the pressure builds up

David Williams · Post by **David Williams** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:11 am

I did suffer many years with hosepipes

Last year I sepnt some time n Â£Â£Â£ on plumbin

I used nearly 50 meters of pipe incomming

Got lots of taps n lots drains

Saves so much time

U do need traps as the grit settles solid

Although currently working on

Softa Settle tm

This ground breaking top secret technology being developed at my seaside research facility

Uses soaked news paper I add this 2 the flat bed grit n in2 the diomond saw

Early tryals indicate waste is a lot softer

One thing with the saw I use water + a bit of thin oil

Then spray it all with oil when I finish ( saw )

Getting back 2 the hose pipe they do have a nasty habit of blowing off the taps as the pressure builds up[/quote]

Yeah plumbing is so easy these days with pvc pipe, just glue and stick you can do even a fairly complicated run in short order. The stuff is way cheap too. Cheaper than garden hose by far.

Lynne Chappell · Post by **Lynne Chappell** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 1:59 am

Well, we have a wet belt sander, but don't do any extensive amount of work on it. It didn't seem worth the trouble to do anything fancy for 10 minutes of work twice a week, so we just have a squirt bottle of water and squirt it on the belt. There's an empty bucket sitting under the sander to collect the excess and we empty it when it starts running all over the floor. (Or sometimes we notice and get it before that).

WarmGlass.com

WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

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Re: WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

Re: WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

Re: WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.

Re: WBS: Water is heavy and I am lazy.