1800 FPS Belt Ginder?

Infi-del

Infi-del

Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
3,572
Hi all. I was looking at the little Kalamazoo 1X42 Belt grinder that runs at like 1725rpms with a Belt Speed of 1800 FPS if I'm not mistaken. Is this gonna be alright for sharpening knives? I really want to avoid the 3400 RPM models cause I've read you can ruin an edge and even round a tip even if you've got pleanty of practice. Is the speed on this little guy gonna be OK for blades. I'm mostly gonna stick with 600 grit and up at the begining to just polish my edges and do finishing work. I'll move into something more coarse for actually repairing and setting edges once I've gained some skill. Pretty much just wanna know if this speed is still too fast.

I found a source for 1/2HP Electric Motors with a shank speed of 1000rpm. Any idea where I can get a 1X30 or 1X42 belt sander kit without a motor so that I can just rig up my own? Would a 1/2HP motor work alright on a belt drive?
 
I bought the kit from LeeValley, and install a 3 Phase motor, running the motor off of a KB VFD.
I have any speed that I want, works very good.
gary
 
1725RPM would be ideal for sharpening, my belt sander runs at 3000RPM and I haven't burnt or overheated a blade since I started learning how to use it.


[youtube]wMSzx6B_iCY[/youtube]


^^ Me sharpening with a 3000RPM belt sander.
 
That has to be 1800 feet per minute, not per second. 1800 feet/second is faster than the speed of sound in air at sea level.
 
Bill1170 said:
That has to be 1800 feet per minute, not per second. 1800 feet/second is faster than the speed of sound in air at sea level.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I was thinking. 1800 FPS would overheat the blade of the knife in your pocket due to the excessive heat your flaming body would be producing!
 
Bill1170 said:
That has to be 1800 feet per minute, not per second. 1800 feet/second is faster than the speed of sound in air at sea level.
Click to expand...

Thought I was on gunblast, highroad or ar15.com there for a second!! 1800fps sander would be a sight though!! I bet Infidel is like me though, any time he's usually writing feet per, its in seconds and he's talking about a firearm of some sort.

All joking aside, I am very interested in this thread, I see a belt sander in my life in the next month or so at the most, and I too am very cautious of the high speed ones commonly used. That LV kit seems like an excellent option!! I was considering the Kalamazoo one as well.
 
Gotsouthern said:
Thought I was on gunblast, highroad or ar15.com there for a second!! 1800fps sander would be a sight though!! I bet Infidel is like me though, any time he's usually writing feet per, its in seconds and he's talking about a firearm of some sort.

All joking aside, I am very interested in this thread, I see a belt sander in my life in the next month or so at the most, and I too am very cautious of the high speed ones commonly used. That LV kit seems like an excellent option!! I was considering the Kalamazoo one as well.
Click to expand...

Alright guys give me a break LOL. I did mean FPM. And yes I am trained to write FPS because of my love affair with guns. Anywho do you think that Belt speed would be ideal for sharpening knives or would something like a 1000RPM motor be more what I'm looking for. I know eith time one can learn to manage a 3400rpm grinder with skill. But I want a good setup from the get go. Plus I want something that will be less of a heat risk. I used to love sharpening by hand but I just don't have the time anymore. As Richard_J says, my time is very important to me. I've already begun the steps to get me some paper wheels. But I want a belt machine for all my wonderful convex grinds. Thanks in advance.
 
Roger999 said:
1725RPM would be ideal for sharpening, my belt sander runs at 3000RPM and I haven't burnt or overheated a blade since I started learning how to use it.


[youtube]wMSzx6B_iCY[/youtube]


^^ Me sharpening with a 3000RPM belt sander.
Click to expand...


Why do you slice into the wooden block. Is that to break the bur or something? Won't the strop break the bur off?
 
Here are the specs... it's the Kalamazoo 1SM

Belt Size (in./W x L) 1 x 42
Belt Speed (SFPM) 1,800
Contact Wheel Diameter (in.) 4
Motor Speed (RPM) 1,725

I got a dealer friend that can probably get me one below $200.00. Considering I've spent 5 times that in sharpening stones and kits in my lifetime... This little puppy is sounding more and more like the way to go. I might just go all convex edges on all my gear and run with this bad boy alone. I'm just nervous that that belt speed is still too fast.
 
Get the Kalamazoo. Ive had one for about 5 months now and its great. Heres some things I have done on it.

IMG_2772.jpg

IMG_2660.jpg
 
norcalblacktail said:
Get the Kalamazoo. Ive had one for about 5 months now and its great. Heres some things I have done on it.

IMG_2772.jpg

IMG_2660.jpg
Click to expand...

What belts are you using. I'm hesitant to use a leather belt (Although It would be awesome) just because I'm sure at first I'm gonna snag a tip and ruin the belt. You find it's easy to use? That edge looks really polished. So they sharpen up nice on the ISM? I think I'm gonna just jump in. Gotta raise 200 non-essential bucks first. If it turns out like I want this may be the best 200 bucks I've ever spent.

Side note... where did you get yours? Was there a good deal to be had. I found one online for $209.00 but hopefully my dealer buddy can get me one at cost.
 
Infi-del said:
Why do you slice into the wooden block. Is that to break the bur or something? Won't the strop break the bur off?
Click to expand...
Yep it's to break off the burr, I just prefer to get rid of the burr earlier because sometimes you might get the floppy burrs that want to fold to the other side when you alternate strokes.
 
The leather belts are easy to use, and I've never had a tip snag in one, though I've never tried a dagger. I started using one about 6 years ago, with some white compound on it. To be honest, I found using the belt sander exclusively wears knives out pretty quick, so I'd recommend a Sharpmaker or a coarse/fine India combo stone in between going to the sander. I do a lot of sharpening for sharpenings sake, so that may have contributed to the excess wear on some of my knives.

You will overheat a couple of knives before getting the hang of it, but after that it shouldnt be a problem. I find that sharpening against the platen is when I overheat knives, so I just use the slack belt. I recently made some wooden jigs and put the knives against them to hold a consistent angle, and do REALLY light passes against the platen. Consistency seems to be the key, because I was able to resharpen a couple of knives even faster than normal for a belt sander. One thing you will want to try is to position the knife so you can see the burr forming, similar to what Richard recommends for the paper wheels. I had the HF 1x30 sander, and made a frame so I could lay it horizontal, then used a light so I could see the burr form as the belt moved away from me. This reduced the excess wear as well. My wooden jigs work on the tool rest that comes with most belt sanders, so I can use them for knives, then turn the sander horizontal for machetes and such. Be sure to learn to freehand, because you will eventually run across something that cant be done any other way, like the Cold Steel Kukri Machete.
 
me2 said:
The leather belts are easy to use, and I've never had a tip snag in one, though I've never tried a dagger. I started using one about 6 years ago, with some white compound on it. To be honest, I found using the belt sander exclusively wears knives out pretty quick, so I'd recommend a Sharpmaker or a coarse/fine India combo stone in between going to the sander. I do a lot of sharpening for sharpenings sake, so that may have contributed to the excess wear on some of my knives.

You will overheat a couple of knives before getting the hang of it, but after that it shouldnt be a problem. I find that sharpening against the platen is when I overheat knives, so I just use the slack belt. I recently made some wooden jigs and put the knives against them to hold a consistent angle, and do REALLY light passes against the platen. Consistency seems to be the key, because I was able to resharpen a couple of knives even faster than normal for a belt sander. One thing you will want to try is to position the knife so you can see the burr forming, similar to what Richard recommends for the paper wheels. I had the HF 1x30 sander, and made a frame so I could lay it horizontal, then used a light so I could see the burr form as the belt moved away from me. This reduced the excess wear as well. My wooden jigs work on the tool rest that comes with most belt sanders, so I can use them for knives, then turn the sander horizontal for machetes and such. Be sure to learn to freehand, because you will eventually run across something that cant be done any other way, like the Cold Steel Kukri Machete.
Click to expand...

Oh I've been freehand sharpening for nearly two decades. And I own three lansky kits, a sharpmaker, spyrderco bench stones, spyderco profile stones, DMT bench and folding stones, and an Edge-Pro Apex, as well as various types of strops that can be fitted with the sheets of sand paper up to 2000 grit. And I have rag, leather, and felt wheels set up for buffing and power stropping. I've done it all LOL. In the field I'm perfectly fine with my padded sander block with leather pad and varying sandpaper grits. Or just my spyderco profiles and a mini-strop I made out of Kangaroo Leather. I'm just looking for a bench type machine to have at home base. And to create edges on my tools that I can more easily maintain in the field. I really only intend to go to the machine when the edges are really worn and it would simply take 30 minutes or more to restore them. As well as the fact I've become known in my area as the guy that can sharpen the crap out of a knife and people are always paying me to sharpen their knives. Knives that have seen better days. Knives that can take hours to reprofile by hand. Knives from owners who think they know how to sharpen a knife until it just stops getting sharp anymore after they've put so many micro bevels on their blade that the edge is flat. So I want something to do that faster with so I can make more money on the side for ammo and toys. Making 15 dollars on a Sunday sharpening in my free time is nice. But I'd like to do more knives and make about $50.00 or so.
 
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