Like most of the inexpensive, cast iron, machinery coming out of the far east, this is somewhat of a "kit-in-a-box." All the parts were there, and it assembled pretty much as to instructions. It helps to have a mill file, and a countersink chucked in a cordless drill, to knock off some of the sharp edges and burrs. You will also need a few ounces of paint thinner/kerosene and some old rags to take off the thick coating of grease on some of the parts. Finally, a small tube of decent grease or anti-seize compound to carefully lube locations (like the tilting table for the disk) that have metal-metal contact. pThis model has reasonably flat cast iron tables, unlike the Craftsman model I had previously used. I use it all the time for sanding fine parts. I only wish the belt table had the nice semi-circular,tounge in groove guide that the disk table has. pStartup found the belt "squirming" a bit too much for my tast. Carefully opening the side panel, and touching up the crown/mold parting line region of the elastomeric drive wheels (while the machine is running) took care of that issue. ***Please, be very, very careful while trying this procedure. Use a straight mill file, with teeth all of the way to the end, and do not put you fingers inside the shroud area.***pSuch tuneups are the "price to pay" for inexpensive tools.

I've been making a lot of knives lately and have found this sander invaluable for that application. The narrow belt has more utility than wider ones for doing handle work and the disk is great for shaping. It's got plenty of power for both wood and metal, is relatively quiet, and has performed flawlessly for almost two years of pretty heavy use.
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br /So, why am I not rating this 5 stars then you might ask? Well, there are a few drawbacks. First off, the dust extraction isn't all that great. Every second or third time I change the belt I need to vacuum out the dust channel underneath the cover. The disks don't last all that long and are a pain in the neck to scrape loose and replace. I finally decided to leave off the inner guard below the disk sander which, best as I can tell, is only there to help channel dust. Since it doesn't work all that well anyway and takes three screws to remove and replace each time I've just left it off. The sander still works fine and it's one less step to replace the disk. I've also had a really hard time finding 8" disks in anything other than 80 grit, though the belts are available in a variety of grits.
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br /Good value; solid product. If it ever gives up the ghost I'd replace it with another one in a heartbeat. Not perfect but very useful and certainly recommended.

I received and assembled the sander with relative ease. After little use, I found I could not get the tracking mechanism to work. I removed the belt cover and found the entire top pulley moved on the shaft it was mounted on which made the tracking impossible. It appeared to be a flaw in assembly.br I returned the product for a full refund and purchased a Craftsman equivalent. The Craftsman sander had more metal parts, including the idler wheels. Both Craftsman and Delta units are Chinese made.br I have other Delta products that I am very happy with. It's disappointing to me that Delta is buying Chinese made equipment and putting their name on it. Go for the quality and don't worry about being loyal to the name!br Tool Crib was wonderful in the handling of this issue! I will gladly continue doing business with them.

Summary: After exchanging unit once, and working with Delta over a period of two months on three major problems, I finally returned the second unit and bought a Craftsman sander. Very dissapointed with Delta's quality control and ability to get repair parts to customers. Very, very impressed with Tool Crib's handling of this problem. Tool Crib rocks.
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br /Ordered and received unit mid December. Both platform adjustment handles (big blue things) and associated hardware were missing. Called Delta and had parts within about 5 days. Then found that belt wouldn't track--adjustment mechanism not working properly. Contacted Delta, said would ship new part. First week of January contacted Delta again to find out where part was--said that part was backordered until 3rd week of Jan. Hadn't informed me on first call.
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br /Received part on Jan 25. Note that tracking adjustment consists of a bracket which holds a roller pin that acts as a pivot for the arm holding the upper belt roller. They only sent me the bracket, which wasn't the problem to begin with. Also, the bracket, pin and arm, IMHO, should be treated as a single replaceable unit, rather than assuming the average consumer has a punch the right size to drive out the roller pin. At this point I filled out a return/exchange request with Tool Crib.
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br /I've been a frequent customer of Tool Crib and have been very happy with their service, but I was still amazed when the UPS pickup guy showed up the next day (I filled out the request late the previous night), and the replacement unit showed up less than 48 hours later.
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br /The replacement unit went together fine until I started it up. Then severe banging, scraping noise. It seems that the sanding disk casting hadn't been machined flat on the back, resulting in thickness variation of over 3/16". This caused the high spots on the disk casting to hit the enclosure. I checked with Delta, and this part was backordered for 3-4 weeks. At this point I returned the unit to Tool Crib and went to Sears. BTW, the Sears sanding disk casting had not only been cleaned up, it had been machined to balance it.
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br /I'm a big fan of the Chinese tool deal, where some factory in China makes a set of castings that are used by almost everybody, and you pick the level of fit and finish that you want to pay for. I've bought a lot of stuff this way, ranging from a Jet mill that I didn't have to do anything to, to one of the metal cutting bandsaws from Harbor Freight that I had to do a couple of days work on.
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br /If Delta can deliver a good quality sander for less than $100, subject to my doing quality control, replacing a part or two, and making a few fit and finish adjustments, I'm satisfied. However, this only works if Delta can get replacement parts to me in a timely fashion. They didn't in my case. Multiple times. As a result, I had a semi-assembled sander in my shop for over 2 months. I have a full time job plus a part time business out of my shop. I don't need a hobby, and getting this sander to work was starting to look like one.

This sander is a solid tool that has been designed and factory assembled with thought and care for its intended purpose. It is very heavy compared to other home shop tools, but that weight allows the user to work with large dimension wood without any movement of the tool.
br /The power is more than adequate for sanding through two inch oak stock and the results will please most users.
br /The only two items that I would design differently would be the placement and orientation of the on/off switch. [Tools should switch up for on and down for off.]
br /The second change would be a larger working surface for the 8" sander. [I have addressed that issue with a laminated 12" x 20" extension surface that mates up with the existing metal table.]
br /The product was delivered with a defective miter gauge. One quick call to Delta and the part was in my shop within a week. That is consistant with my experience with Delta support. Over the years, they have performed better than most and even when a tool has been past the warranty date, the required part was shipped without charge.
br /Whenever possible, if the choice is available, I choose a Delta tool over the competition.

This sander was purchased for me for Father's Day. It arrived in less than a week in a slightly beat up box but the item was intact, not a scratch on it. It went together exactly as the instructions said it would (Surprise!). It works perfectly and all the fit and finish is flawless. I am using this machine primarily for sharpening and it works great for that. Probably not as good as a Tormek machine but it it is only 1/4 the price and the sharpening and leather stropping belts are relatively inexpensive. I may have to rethink buying other Delta tools based on the quality of this little work horse.

I am just a garage hobby guy, who occaisionally attempts more difficult projects, this little sander is a dream to use and has very lttle vibration. A lttle fussy to assemble but all the holes matched up perfectly and I was able to get the cast iron tables squared up quickly and easily, amazing for a sander of this price. All in all a truly useful tool in the small workshop.

I bought this tool for use in sharpening lathe tools and for sanding small parts of wooden toys, I already own a heavy duty Jet 48x12 inch belt/disk sander. This sander was on sale and I bought it to meet the minumum purchase to get another Amazon discount. I was not expecting too much.
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br /I am surprised. First, the tool is much heavier and more substantial than I anticipated. Yes, it is made in China, but the disign is very good and the manufacturing fit and finish is good for a tool of this price point. The tables are made of cast iron and they are adequate. The plastic parts, shields and pulley guards fit and do the job. The adjusting handles for the tilt tables are excellent.
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br /The motor is 1/3 horsepower and is more than adequate for the job. I turned the machine on; it is not exactly quiet, but is not loud or offensive. Though there is some vibration, it is acceptable. We will have to wait to see how reliable the machine is, but I am very impressed with the overall quality, and the value is excellent. If you are considering a small sander, forget about Harbor Freight or Sears, this is the machine to get.
br /I give this machine 5 stars for quality and value.

Pros: Great sander, easy to use, small footprint. Picked up a stainless steel cart to move it around.
br /Cons: Unit is Heavy (Not really a Con but care for your back)
br /A couple of the screws can be difficult to reach when assembling
br /No Dust bag with unit gets a minus 1 star

Some assembly, but with experience putting tools and machine together it goes together quick and easy. For the money the best machine on the market in its class. Good features such as cast iron tables are not on many other machines.

This is a decent little tool for the 1" belt. I've used it on many projects, and that part has held up well.
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br /The disk part of the sander is horrible. It broke after about 3 uses. The shaft bent (I wasn't abusing it either). In other words, the disk is very light duty. Since the shaft bent, it caused the disk to rub against the housing. Ultimately, I just removed the disk and threw it away. It's worth buying this sander for the 1" belt, but plan on buying a seperate disk.
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br /In other words, if you mainly need the disk sander, DO NOT BUY THIS.
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My Delta SA180 was acquired recently as a replacement for my 12-year old Craftsman 1" x 42" sander which still works fine but creates quite a mess. The Delta appealed to me because it has two dust ports - one for the 1" x 42" belt and one for the disc. Other sanders I looked at had dust collection for the disc only, and I mainly use the belt.
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br /When this thing is hooked up to my 4 h.p. Shop Vac, it leaves zero dust on the bench as long as there is a reasonable gap left between the platen and table for dust to be conveyed down into the enclosed pulley area. After use, the inside of the pulley housing is not "dust free," but the air and work area remain clean.
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br /The 1/3 h.p. motor is about twice as big as the one on my Craftsman, and appears more than equal to the task of running a 1" x 42" belt. Usually I do not go by H.P. ratings of electric motors and have found that the physical size of the motor is what counts. This one is plenty big.
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br /There is some plastic on this machine, but most of it is made out of heavy steel and cast iron. The tables are cast iron as well as the arm(s) containing the belt pulleys. This is a "benchtop" machine but weighs 60 pounds, so I appreciate Delta's use of plastic for non-critical parts to keep the weight down. If the whole thing were made out of steel it would be tougher to move off the bench.
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br /A nice feature is that dust/metal particles from the belt land in a castiron channel under the grinding table. On a couple occasions my bench was nearly set on fire by hot metal particles which the Craftsman sander deposited onto the work surface.
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br /Overall, this machine is thoughtfully designed, substantial and well worth the price.

I bought this sander based on Deltas legendary quality. I turns out legend is the correct word. The work tables could not be assembled because of poor hole tapping and mangeled trunion bolts. I retapped the holes and remade the trunion screws from srratch ( I own a machine shop). Even though it took two hours to fix the problem it was simplier than sending it back. I know this is a low end tool,but it has cost Delta the potential sale of a Unisaw and mortise machine.
br / In the last two months I have bought power tools from Grizzly,Jet,and Shop Fox and I had ZERO assembly and alignment problems with these tools.
br / So much for Deltas Quality!!

I am very happy with this sander it plenty of power and is very easy to set up. For the price I think it is a very good product. Rich

I bought this for my husband and he is very excted about using it. Great price and fast delivery.

As commented by others, assembly was estimated to take 1-2 hours. I'd like to meet anyone who can put this thing together in that amount of time. I had one problem after another. Their is very little space to put many of the parts on the sanding head. After two evenings and a few hours, I had the thing put together except for the two cast iron tables. Neither table could be installed. First problem was finding the exact position of the disk sander table so it could pivot. Next the clamp assembly's locking stud was to large to fit into the bored hole. Then I tried both studs in the belt table and neither stud would fit. I am going to throw in the towel and return it for a refund.

Where do I start? I was in a hurry to get the sander so I shopped around to find one that would be here in 2 days and it ended up taking a week and a half. When it finely got here I spent about 1 hour putting it together, and let me tell you the quality is crap, it is definity a product of out-sourcing, the drive pulley and transfer shaft are not in alignment. The tensioning pulley is cranked all the way in to keep the belt tracking in the right position. Both table rests are poor cast quality with the tops just planed flat. Before I could even use it the 8in. wheel had to be clearanced of casting flash with a die-grinder. All in all totally disappointed with the product. If I were to do it again I probly would not buy another delt product without playing the hands on game. The bottom line is I would not recommend this product to my 4yr. old.

Its ok for a cheap sander. The top idler does not really work that well. Making it hard to center the belt. The bracket that holds the idler is to light duty and bents under its own spring tension. Also the dust removal does not work very well. And so the rest of the sander is also light duty but does not seem to bend. I would not buy it again.
br /Timothy the Tool Man

I found this sander reasonably easy to set up (except for the disc sander cover.) It has worked very well on the projects where I have used it(mixed wood and metal.) I did have to build a stand for it. brIt is not a 6 x 48 belt and 12 inch disc sander, but it works for me.

A good tool, with pleanty of power. I am using it to sand comb teeth, and it is too fast with the belt supplied. I had to go to a finer sandpaper belt. The disc would be more useful if it was larger, but it works fine. It is quiet and smooth running, the tracking adjustment works fine, and has almost no vibration. I like it.

For the money, it is a good buy. If you have any mechanical abilities, it is easy to assemble and/or make improvements to it.

The shopmaster was easy to assemble and works quite well for what I wanted it for. I would have rated it at 5 stars except, out-of-the-box, the belt sander portion is practaclly unusable. The mouldline on the plastic wheels stands out and is uneven, making the belt jump about quite a bit. I followed the advice of a previous reviewer and used a file to smooth the wheels, so now the belt is good and steady.
br /The only other thing I noticed was that neither of the dust collector outlets will fit a vacuum cleaner hose or a small dust collector hose. I had to use a rubber plumbing connector to adapt the outlets to my vacuum.
br /I have noticed that many small tools that have dust collection outlets have the same problem.

I bought this sander to build wooden structures for my model railroad. I am building wooden through girder bridges that require many odd angles and precise fitting. This tool is perfect for this process. It is a very solidly built machine and as the belt sander frame is cast iron it is also quite heavy. It is not the kind of thing that you would want to carry around much but once you get it to your work area it stays put! The shipping weight was around 62 pounds! It is not designed for large projects but is great for hobby and small projects. This is a keeper!!

For the cost this is an excellent value. The only draw back is the mitre gauge is a little "cheap" for what one would expect from Delta.

Poor quality overall, especially both tables and belt. the belt is not square and wobbles one-half inch: note the platten is only 1-inch wide. the belt table is so poorly machined it can't be adjusted to set-up tolerance. Delta claimed it was tested at the factory; they obviously sell failed products. as a safety engineer I can tell you the guarding is poorly designed. Delta has done nothing to improve product quality, maintenance, or usability for the many, many years the product has been built. a very novice product.
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br /Delta fails at quality, and customer service. I'm disappointed with this product and company. I would return the product if total shipping didn't cost a significant per-cent of the product value; repairing is the same negative result, and economic trap. it is obvious once I received the product and contacted Delta that they did not want to be responsible for the product. Delta apparently seeks to make U.S. dollars from Chinese manufactured junk with Delta nameplates attached.
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br /No beginner, enthusiast, or professonal should have to experience such a poor quality product from Delta. However, this appears to be the new Delta standard.

The safety guard for the belt pulley and disk is very poor from an assembly standpoint. The small screws that attach the guard to the machine are very difficult to install and tighten. Tightening the screws requires positioning a small allen wrench through a deep hole in the guard. This particular feature is very poorly designed and may result in the guard not being installed properly.