The machine had three settings for drum pressure.
In the late ’60s, big machines on wood flooring job sites were all drum sanders, which were prone to chatter and had to have sheets of sandpaper carefully inserted just so into the slots on their drums. Belt sanding machines existed, but only in large-scale industrial applications. Enter Eugen Lägler, a German machinist who decided a belt machine was the way to go, and sanding on wood flooring job sites changed forever. Lägler faced several challenges, including the fact that until that time, the roller assembly for belt machines was as big as the drum, and that his new design required cloth-backed abrasives, which weren’t commonly available. Today, the company he started is worldwide, with his son Karl Lägler at the helm at the Güglingen, Germany, headquarters, and the company still works to refine a machine whose core design is the same as the first one produced back in 1969.
