Sanding belts

[Weekend_Woodworker]

I was using my Makita belt sander yesterday, which I don’t use very often and decided it wasn’t working well I had put a 40grit belt on and the wood was coming out fairly smooth and not removing my lots of material. I think the problem is with the abrasive belt not being very good as it hasn’t been used much and looks fairly clean.

A while back I remember seeing Jonathan Katz Moses doing a relatively scientific review of abrasives and he recommended 3M cubitron as being the best. Have you come across anywhere that sells Cubitron belts that are 100mm by 610mm? Alternatively what would your recommendation be for a belt like that?

Many thanks,

Mark

 

[Trevanion]

Grit quality is everything with abrasives. As you've found, you can have a very coarse grit but if it's not sharp it will not cut particularly well, or it begins sharp but very quickly loses its edge. It's best to stick with manufacturers that only produce abrasives rather than companies that produce everything as their products are usually substandard, like Faithfull who sell dreadful abrasives which are actually quite expensive!

I'm not sure if I would bother with Cubitron (which was primarily designed for longevity in metalwork) for sanding belts for wood even if you could get them, it works for sanding discs on wood because they rarely clog but sanding belts clog up very quickly depending on what you're sanding and can be very difficult to clean off even with a rubber block. It would get quite expensive having to chuck good sanding belts that are still sharp because they've clogged and do not cut anymore and are too much of a struggle to clean.

Stick with the good brands like Mirka, Sia, Klingspor, and Smirdex and you won’t go far wrong.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

Thanks Trevanion, I’ll see if I can find a mixed set of grits in one of those makes. I have found boxes of 10, but that might keep me going for years.

 

[Trevanion]

Thanks Trevanion, I’ll see if I can find a mixed set of grits in one of those makes. I have found boxes of 10, but that might keep me going for years.

That's the problem with infrequent use in a hobbyist workshop, one good belt could last years of occasional sanding but belts do have a shelf life believe it or not. I bought a like-new Makita 9404 a while ago which came with a couple of boxes of 80-grit and 100-grit Mirka belts which I thought was a nice bonus, the only thing was the machine was a 2010 machine and I presume the belts were probably bought at the same time and the adhesive that jointed the belts had decayed, after running a belt for a couple of minutes they would blow at the joint completely. They do recommend not using belts that are older than five years old because of this, but I have run older paper belts in larger machines without issue so again it probably depends on the quality and the adhesive used. Though a small machine like a handheld belt sander with smaller wheels spinning faster is obviously harder on the joints than a larger machine.

I see Axminster do Bosch belts in 610mm x 100mm size in packs of three, which might be a more economical solution for you and I would've thought Bosch belts will be decent quality as well. I only ever use 80-grit belts as I'm mostly sanding planed surfaces, but there is merit for the coarser belts if you're sanding rough-sawn timber. I'm not a huge fan of finer belts as they clog very quickly, seem to dull much quicker, and end up polishing the surface rather than sanding.

 

[Malc2098]

I've found no issue with belts supplied by Dr Abrasive.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

Thanks Malc. They seem reasonably priced and sell them individually which is good.