BLACK+DECKER Belt Sander with Dust Bag, 7-Amp, 3-Inch by 21-Inch (DS321)

So first off. I've never used a belt sander before. In the pics this is a 30+ year old bench built by my grandfather. Just sitting on it and you got seven splinters. I decided to take apart, rebuild, and stain. So for the first run... belt was flying all over the place. Complete fail. However! You have to take time. Read instructions. Turn unit over, set, and adjust the dial. The dial adjustments are actually quite small. A quarter inch turn, turned out perfect. It is very important to get this set FIRST! After figuring this out was flawless. Ran like a champ. Removed dust bag as this volume of dust was ridiculous. Overall best idea ever, super affordable, and worked like a dream. Highly recommended. Just take the time and learn how to adjust the lock the belt. Cheers and good luck!

So I have owned many belt sanders in my day. In fact, I have 3 others presently when I decided to buy this one. The primary reason for this purchase was this sanders' large front space in front of the handle to be able to get under railings. My project is sanding a deck with existing vinyl railings that none of the other sanders could get under. So this seemed like a perfect solution. I got the sander and put it right to work. I paid attention to the front wheel and adjustment as many reviews here complained that it was badly engineered and the belt kept coming off. I completed about 150 feet of edging, under railings and along the house on this deck and the belt acted exactly as you would expect; if you push in one direction it will move in the opposite direction. In other words, if I am pushing down on the front of the machine and I slide the machine to the left, the belt will want to move to the right. It isn't an engineering issue, its physics. Anyway, great product. Did exactly what I wanted it to do and solved a great problem because of the unique design. Well done B&D.

This is a nice little sander except for the engineering flaw where the the lock will not keep the sand paper in place on the belt. at least 1/4 the width of the sandpaper keeps slipping out to the side (other reviews have made this complaint as well), AND the dust collector system stopped working. It still worked, but it made the sandpaper wear unevenly and made sanding much more difficult and much less efficient that if this design flaw did not exist. It surprises me that engineers let such an obvious design flaw make its way into production. It would be a very nice little sander otherwise. This flas is irritating enough that I wish I would have purchased a different product and would not recommend this sander to anyone looking for a sander like this in this price rang. You can do better.

Learning my heavy belt sander purchased 30 years ago required belts that are now obsolete, and having a small job that needed a belt sander, I read the reviews on this belt sander and decided to give it a try. My immediate impression was unfavorable, as most belt sanders I have previously used were heavy - and that extra weight helped when using it on horizontal surfaces, but admittedly strained the muscles when working on vertical surfaces. This feels very light and has many plastic parts, so I was suspicious how well it would work on a 10' by 15' subfloor that needed extensive sanding. Within a few minutes my suspicions were abated, as adjusting the belt in advance of using it was an easy task - and the belt did not need repeated adjustments, which was something previous belt sanders required. While I needed to apply more pressure on the horizontal surface to ensure the sander bit into the wood, the sander worked marvelously and the dust bag actually worked. No dust bag collects 100% of debris, but this one did an admirable job capturing debris. I'm not sure how it would stand up to all day use, but for the few hours I needed it, it worked without a hitch. Stopping to vacuum out the dust bag afforded the sander an opportunity to cool, and then it went right back to work. I wish I had more time to spend working wood, as this would definitely become a valued tool.

My 20 year old 21" belt sander wore out and after a bit of searching settled on the B&D Dragster. What a bargain this sander is. I was very impressed with the power and ease of control and eas of material removal. The narrow front end wheels allowed for more precise control then Ive ever had. It comes with a low grit belt so I could use it out of the box. The belt release mechanism was easy to use

The front flip-up guard is a fantastic feature. I wish all belt sanders had that. I dis-assembled my deck railing (60 feet long x 4' high) with 2x2 staves, 2x6 caps and 2x4 facing, sanded everything down to bare wood, and repainted. A huge project and that sander was fantastic. I just kept the flip-up in the up position the entire time and used the front of the sander to really crank down on those stubborn spots. The paper walks a bit and required occasional adjustment but, hey, they all do that; nature of the beast. I had 18 years worth of solid color stain to remove and this sander did the job. I used a small electric blower to clean the sander out about every 15 minutes or so, and that helped a lot. I'd highly recommend this inexpensive sander for medium projects like this.

Ok, I went against my better judgement after reading reviews about this product. I thought most folks aren't handy and don't know how this really works. I used this sander to do hardwood floors @ 2 hours a day, 4 days a week for 3 weeks. The first week... I was in heaven. This sander replaced a slower smaller sander I had for years. It worked awesome initially in comparison to my older sander. The second week... the dust collector stopped working (a warning other owners had). When I say it stopped working, I, mean just that. It stopped picking up ANY dust at all. I cleaned the unit thoroughly, but it would not pickup any dust. This caused a HUGE mess with the dust. By week 3... the motor burned out completely. I picked it up one day and the sander seemed to be working slower than normal. I cleaned it thoroughly again. I changed the belt 3 times. I air sprayed the unit to make sure nothing was trapped... to no avail. It finally began to smoke and gave up the ghost. It quit on me with 1/2 of the final floor to finish. Now, I did use a much bigger sander (rented) for the initial sanding of the floors. I only used this sander for light duty work, not to over work it. But, in the end... it didn't matter. So, I went back to old reliable and finished my floor. For the one week it worked... it worked awesome for one full week, but in the end it was a bust!

I had so much trouble with the original item that I returned it and requested an exact replacement after giving it a one-star rating. The replacement sander seems to track better, making me wonder if the first item was just defective. The star rating was difficult. It is light and ergonomic, but it is "light duty" and is more useful for getting into tight places and "assisting" my much stronger Makita. But on the good side it was about 25% of the cost of the Makita, and I think that has to be taken into account. I wanted to like this sander a lot. It was inexpensive, light weight, reasonable ergonomic due to the adjustable handle (except it’s hard to hit the “locked on” button due to the dust collection bag position), and it sands pretty close to an edge. The problem is that the belt tracking adjustment is so dysfunctional that the belt wanders all over the place even if I adjust it every five seconds, to the extent that it ends up breaking a belt literally every two minutes. I can’t afford that many belts.....