Makita 9403 4" x 24" Belt Sander, Teal

Heavy duty belt sander. Powerful and does a good job. Easy to operate and changing belts is a breeze, as is adjusting the tracking. 80 grit paper is the heaviest I’ve used and it sands with that grit like a charm. The dust vacuum system works much better than I expected, however with that heavy grit paper the bag fills quite quickly. I highly recommend this tool.

I purchased this belt sander to sand the 4x4s for my grandkids swing set. We got a 50 grit paper and used it for a few hours to sand off the slivers and roughness. The power is great, it's smooth and not very loud. The belt adjustment is precise and the belt tracks well. My son in law tried to sand the cord. This was the end of our sanding for the day. I got to take apart the sander. First I had to get the cord out that was run up in the sander. I will tell you that the mechanical parts are solid and well built. Top of the line. The screws all screw into the metal body so you can tighten them back down snug. The rollers have a 7/8" nut shaped cone inside so I was able to use a rachet to back out the entangled cord. The cord was not cut, but I feared it might be internally damaged after being severely pinched. So I ended up shortening the cord. This was no problem since it has a sturdy very long cord. The layout and connections in the switch and neutral where great. It was very easy to reinstall the slightly shorter cord. When I restarted the sander I realized that the drive was not working properly. So I flipped the sander on it's side and removed the cover to the belt. I feared the motor or gears might be messed up. I was delighted to find that some of the cogs on the rubber belt had been stripped away when the cord suddenly stopped the sander. So rather than replacing the motor or broken gears, I replaced a $7 drive belt. Overall the design and implementation of the sand is excellent. It is designed and built to last. This is something you don't find in many power tools today. Kudos to Makita. I look forward to using the sander for years to come.

This belt sander is a beast! The quality is second to none. Makita is known for quality and this sander lives up to their reputation. Heavy, industrial-grade build that will last for years to come. The details:1) Anyone who has used a belt sander knows how much of a pain it is when the belt walks. Constantly having to recenter the belt is a problem with many sanders on the market today. You will not have that issue with this belt sander. I put the belt on, sanded until the paper was worn to nothing, and it remained in the exact same position the entire time. I went through 5 belts with the exact same results. I love it!2) The quality of the belt sander is amazing. Heavy industrial-grade materials used to build a super-sealed workhorse of a machine. I've only had the belt sander a short period of time, but having experience with others of lesser quality I can assure you that this will last until you want to upgrade years from now.3) The tool is heavy. Which doesn't sound great, but it is. You don't have to apply any pressure onto the belt sander for it to work and strip anything you apply it to. This was a welcomed surprise. If you have used a cheap belt sander in the past, you know what I'm talking about. Applying pressure puts extra wear on the motor and you go through belts faster. The life of the tool becomes less than advertised. Having the Makita do the work for you takes less work from you, takes less work from the sander, and ensures a long lasting tool and the most bang for your buck out of the belt.4) The Makita belts are great as well. I sanded a 40' x 40' area of hardwood floor with 3 belts. I used 2 other belts in my shop sanding both metal and wood items for almost 2 days straight. It became fun, and almost a game to try and wear them down. I am incredibly impressed. Usually I just buy a decent generic belt that fits the sander. But, I'm sticking with the Makita belts for their quality and the fact that they never walk.5) 5 stars for a tool I know I will have years from now. I'm bookmarking this page so I can come back in the future and edit this comment. I'm sure it will be positive!

This is a great sander, well worth the money to me. I saved thousands of dollars by not getting a new deck so it was also a bargain. I had a 40 year old Sears 3 X 21 inch belt sander that served me well for years, but it started breaking the sanding belts, and drifting the belts sideways a lot, so it was not useful anymore. This sander did not break a single belt, and I wore out several of them with no breakage. The unit is well engineered, and the engineers recognized that the biggest enemy of a sander doing this much work was getting the heat and dust away from the sander as quickly as possible. It has very serious blower in it. I didn't even attempt to use that little bag for the deck I was doing, at first I hooked it up to my shop vacuum with an adapter I made. Then I realized that I didn't even need the vacuum, the sander had such a powerful blower. So then I just hooked up a vacuum hose going to a 5 gallon bucket, with the hose going through a scrap cloth sheet held on the top of the bucket by the rubber seal that comes with the bucket lid. That saved unloading the heavy shop vacuum, I just dumped the large amount of sawdust from the bucket periodically. Do not attempt to use this sander without a means to collect the dust. This is a serious heavy powerful tool, not for a weak person. With the motor electrical trigger locked on, it can get you in trouble fast if you are not holding on with good support. It also would be difficult working on vertical or underneath surfaces being so heavy. I only did the flat walked on surfaces of my deck, which were the most worn and in need of sanding. Then I stained it with Home Depot Behr opaque, water clean-up stain.