1x30 belt sander... Belts???????????????????

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haff202

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May 15, 2010
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Ending with a leather belt, what can I get away with in number of belts I need to own in order to produce a shaving edge. I do not see the need for a 10 belt ownership. Thinking I could start with 320,grit first, 2nd- 600,grit and leather with green compound (ECON has fine green and extra fine green, if both do a mirror finish I see no need for extra fine)
Sander is new, 120,grit is the only local belt avaible.
What do I need from ECON or True Grit to mirror polish, shaving sharp my hunting and kitchen knives???
Is 600 to rough before leather belt?
 
For a true mirror polish? I'd want as many grits in between as possible for that. But 600 to leather should leave you with a sharp edge.
 
Depends on what you want to do, like Noctis said, for a really refined edge you would use closer grit spacing. And it depends on how dull the edge is to begin with to determine your starting point. I can take a pretty dull knife to a 1k grit trizact belt, and then straight to a leather hand strop, and it pops hair like nothing. I used to start at 600, then go to 800, then go to 1200, then to a 9 micron, then to a loaded cork belt, to a leather hand strop.
But I have found that for my general edc knives, I don't need to run through more than one or two belts to get a damn sharp edge. Stropping is the key, I use an old leather belt with white rouge(something like 6k grit equivalent I believe), but eventually I want to pick up a leather belt for the grinder.

haff202 said:
What do I need from ECON or True Grit to mirror polish, shaving sharp my hunting and kitchen knives???
Is 600 to rough before leather belt?
Click to expand...

I suspect with a powered strop, you can probably get a mirror edge straight off the 600, but you may not even need to start that low.
 
Well, I use my belt quite a lot, I sharpen down at the local sporting goods place a bit.

My usual progressions are, depending if I am after a polished edge or a slicing edge, are:

180/400/15u/Leather+Green/Leather+White

or

320 / Leather+Green

That second one leaves the edge rather toothy but the burr well removed and the teeth rather polished. It's a VERY fast edge to apply, and is the equal pretty much of most factory edges, perhaps a tad better since you can control the angle decently.
 
"320 / Leather+Green"

I have several 1095 kitchen knives and do the same thing. It is my 1 minute edge. I just strop enough to remove any burr. The edge isn't hair shaving sharp but it sure will grab them. And it will cut 3 edges off of newsprint.
 
I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I use 120 grit sharpening belts from Lee Valley and then buff the burr off with a slotted paper wheel. Sharp enough for my EDC tasks. My straight razor gets a different treatment as fine an abrasive as I have then on a series of strops.
 
Man seems like most people start with a lower grit and go straight to a strop... I always used to go through all the grits and really polish it up, but then I tried what im doing now with 1k+strop and it holds up longer on most of my stuff. Maybe I ought to try out a 300ish+strop for a month or so and see how it goes.
 
Well, as I said, it depends on what I'm DOING. For a general edge or a fast working edge, low grit straight to a stop works great. For knives that require push-cutting ability, spending the extra time to use a few more grits can really pay off.
 
I ordered a 400 grit oxide, 600 grit oxide, 900 grit belt or 9 micron film belt and a leather belt with the very fine green compound. Will these combinations of belts and compound work out a nice mirror edge????
 
They should certainly produce a very nice edge for you! I'm not sure if it will be a "mirror" edge, that is fairly dependent on your technique and how well you work out the scratches from the previous abrasive, but it will definitely be crazy sharp and look very nice.

For a working edge, I'd suggest that you give a try to going from the 400 straight to the leather. It's not a tremendously polished edge, but it's a great working edge that's extremely fast. I usually go 320/leather+green for a quick edge. You will also definitely want to get a couple coarser belts, something in the 120-180-220 range for doing heavier work. The belts seem to cut a lot finer than their grit would lead you to believe. After the 120 and a debur on the leather belt, my testing knife (a crappy garage-sale kitchen knife) will usually shave hair off my arm. Keep an eye on your temperature, keep the edge parallel to the ground, and dip frequently especially at first. I think you'll really enjoy the belt! :)
 
check this out.... good links on here too. may be useful. one nice thing about a belt sander is that you can do convex if you want to at some point in the future.

click here for buffing compound if you want any for your leather belt(s).
 
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