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The good, the bad and the ugly.

The history: I have owned this belt sander for a little over a year. It was given to me as a birthday present, and I have used it maybe three times. The first use was in a fixer-upper house that I was painting and (obviously) fixing up. I used it in this house probably for about 3 hours total. The only other time I can remember using it clearly, was about a week ago on a small wooden bench that I am trying to build (new hobby). I may have used it here and there on other things, but this unit has probably less than 5 hours on it, and definately less than 10 hours on it.

WORTH NOTING: I am a loyal DeWalt customer. I know many people will look at me cross eyed when they hear that- but I’ve had great luck with the tools that I’ve owned from them in the past 2-3 years, and I own MOSTLY yellow power tools. Their cordless drill and reciprocating saw are possibly my favorite, most used tools. I’ve tortured those two and they look and act brand new.

The Good- This tool is AWESOME to use. I spoke to someone who loved the Porter Cable because it was easy to get into tight places if you removed the dust collection, was well balanced, etc. In my limited experience with the Porter Cable (you can see how often I’ve used belt sanders) I found the Dewalt design to be MUCH better. With its lower center of gravity and great balance, it is easy for me to maneuver- even going up vertical walls/doors, etc. It is heavy- but because of the balance it is heavy when it needs to be and easy to handle when it needs to be. If you are sanding something down on the floor, the weight pushes straight down and you just need to hold it steady to keep the sander from taking off like a race car. Very little if any downward force is required to use this tool in this fashion due to its being just heavy enough. And, as I mentioned, if you are going up a wall or door- the balance makes the tool seem not quite so heavy. I can pick it up and hold if flat to a wall for quite some time without any fatigue (maybe an hour before you start to notice). This machine is also PLENTY powerful enough, and can eat through wood like anything I’ve seen. 5 stars for usage characteristics in my book.

The Bad- The dust collection port is not “great”. I can see why people say it doesn’t work, as it seems to work sometimes and not others. I have been thinking of buying the adapter (approx. $15) to hook this up to a shop vac for dust collection- but haven’t gotten around to it. Again, I don’t use this tool enough.

A lot of reviews have stated that this machine eats belts. I haven’t seen this to be the case at all- I’ve only bought 2 belts (different grits) for this machine, and after all the use (a WHOLE 5 hours or so) they are starting to frey a little on the sides. The freying is even though, and I would expect this from the heavy sanding that I’ve been doing. I think these belts could last 10-15 hours with cleaning. Maybe I’m lucky.

Instructions- Maybe I’m not good at reading instructions, but I just find Dewalts instruction manuals to be lacking. In my experience with any of their tools, there is usually one or two key pieces of information that gets left out- or at least is hard to find. Once you figure out the missing piece, everything is great, but finding that piece can be frustrating, and sometimes you may not even realize that your problem is something due to a setting or feature of the tool. For instance, if you hadn’t read the directions thoroughly, you may not have realized how the tracking works on this sander- and may not have even known that you needed to track it. Maybe a poor example….but I hope the point is there.

The UGLY- My last project about a week ago was building a SMALL bench (small= almost doll sized). I had a small piece of wood that I needed to sand down. I was using this tool and everything was working fine. I put the piece down, went to do something else, came back, got setup to continue sanding again, pulled the trigger and….nothing. Yup, it was plugged in, yup the plug was working. I was shocked to be honest. No smell, no noises, nothing. Just a dead tool- that was running PERFECTLY when I stopped using it 5-10 minutes before.

This was a friday night, so I had to wait until monday to call and get it fixed. I was actually shocked and miffed that I had killed a DeWalt tool under such little use (again- 5-10 hours!). I figured, no problem - It’s still got the warranty.

I called DeWalt and was advized of the nearest service center. I brought it in to the place and found out they no longer service DeWalt warranty items since about 3 months ago. They were nice enough to tell me the next closes place, who told me they couldn’t repair it under warrant unless I had my purchase receipt. They were an “Authorized Repair Center” not a “Dewalt Repare Center”. Who would keep their receipt for 3 years? They said it would probably be about $50 total to fix, and it is a $200 tool. I told them that I had read many reviews on here that showed this as being an ongoing problem, so I’d rather save the $50 if it’s going to happen again- and put it towards another sander that won’t break.

I called Dewalt again and found that their closest Dewalt Service Center is about an hour and a half drive away. I can mail it in, and probably will- but the bottom line is that this is a no-warranty warranty. Sure, we’ll replace it if it breaks- but it’s going to be a lot of hassle for you!

The Bottom Line- For use, this is a GREAT tool. However, it breaks down MUCH too fast. If you are going to spend $25-40/hr to sand something, just hire someone else to do it. I wish it had held up, since it did operate very well. It is, at least for me, a big hassle to go through the warranty. I like Dewalt tools a lot, but I would probably look elsewhere for a belt sander if I had to do it over again. I think this is a case, maybe, where the engineering of the tool was very good- but the manufacturing was lacking. Maybe it’s a cheap switch they use? I don’t know. Look at the Porter Cables, or the Bosch sanders.

Update (5/20/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, DEWALT DW433K Heavy-Duty 8 Amp 3-Inch-by-21-Inch Variable Speed Belt Sander Kit with Dust Canister and Case Tools & Hardware, was written by J. Eklund.

The average rating for this item is 3.7 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.