This is my first post in here. Hello To All.
My husband and I have a hand held belt sander, big and powerful thing. Back a few years ago I was refinishing an old oak table. I made the mistake of asking my husband to sand the top of it. He used the hand held belt sander and really made a mess of the table top. I ended up taking the table top and the 2 leafs to a mill and paid them to run it through the HUGE drum sander to fix it. In my opinion, the hand held belt sander IS NOT a very good choice for refinishing pews, flat or not. You might want to try it out on something that is not of much value and see for your self. If you are stripping and staining the pews, use a stripper for that. Your local hardware or home improvement store carry a nice selection. If the pews need sanding I suggest you use an orbital sander and only sand the areas that are in need of sanding. I have found in my experience that once the finish is stripped off using a stripper, the wood needs very little sanding. Most of the unsightly defects are in the finish. I hope this has helped.
Here is a site you can go to and see some of the stuff I have made and see me and my family.
http://groups.msn.com/MyWindowsXP/soozysstuff.msnw
soozy