Sander purchase

[old_picker]

Apols to be slightly OT.
I need a sander and have limited bench space.
I am tossing up for 6" disk X 4" belt or a 12" dedicated disk sander.

The model I want is at carbatec 9"x6" vertical horizontal belt but at 800mm wide it just wont go in the allotted space. the fixed belt jobs [shorter profile]are $200 dearer so out of range unfortunately

What do you guys use and any advice would be good on make model configuration etc.

[gratay]

I have a disc/belt sander...6"/9" ryobi which i had a bunnings voucher which is the only reason i got it.......I was doing a lot of setups and the disc sander came in really handy. But it does the job ok..and having the belt sander as well has come in handy for making various things. In hindsight if I would have seen the hare and forbes or carbatec 12" disc sander i probably would have got one of those...the table looks a bit sturdier on those..I'm forever checking how square mine is because i just don't trust it.

12" disc sander ....hare and forbes had them for about $120 last time i was there....

but what i'd really like is
a nice linisher.... 80-90" x 6" with a big cast iron table if you have the room......which was invaluable in manufacture .maton had them in nearly every section....they got used for so many procedures. they were always running...
carbatec's 6" x 48" linisher would be ok i guess but a bigger table would be better
the big ones are expensive but the smaller carbatec one was about $400

[Malibu]

At the moment I'm using a 9" disc made of plywood and semi-permanantley mounted in my wood lathe. A terrific tool to have, but a lot of times, I find that bigger is better and 9" doesn't quite make it sometimes, but it was really cheap and really easy to whip up, if you have a lathe to start with.
For me, knowing what I'd look for now, I'd go the 12" sander and work on a linisher later on. I'm just finishing off an 18" disc sander and moving later on to a 4" belt linisher because I think the disc is more useful, so I put that down as the priority. :)

[kiwigeo]

The only work I do on a belt/disc sander is small stuff like shaping bone nuts and saddles. Got an Axminster disk(6") /belt (2" wide) machine that does the job and didn't cost the earth ($200).

[JupiterCreek]

Mine's a little GMC cheapie, and next to my pedestal drill and similarly cheap GMC bandsaw I'd rate it as a must have power tool in my workshop.

[old_picker]

Bought a 8"x48" combo yesterday. Pretty heavy duty machine and a nice solid bench for the disk. Most I looked at had pretty unstable benches even up to the $300 mark. Paid $400 at total tools and a pretty nice machine, hope it lasts for years.