A five-year-old FG Floortec Taifun edger that gets used extensively came to me recently with a complaint about a "squealing sound" and overloading on start-up.
The ordinary procedure here is to open the machine and inspect the main upper/lower bearings for blockages, because when the dust port gets obstructed, the internal fan is powerful enough to bypass the dust port entirely and suck through the main bearings.
Upon inspection, the machine was diagnosed with a "cork like" substance that had coated the inside of the machine: A combination of heat, old finishes, wax, wood filler and dust created a solid substance obstructing the entire fan assembly. Here's my short video showing the substance:
The customer had stated that the machine “was a little dusty” before the sound.
Ironically, the bearings were fine, but I changed them anyway and fixed a couple of other nitpicky issues before sending it on its way.
I'll probably recommend the customer remove the baffle plate every once in a while and spray some (non-flammable) brake cleaner in there if he continues to sand traphouses every day.
