Belts and grits for a beginner belt sander

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postoak

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Dec 23, 2011
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As I posted in another thread I bought a 1 x 30 generic belt sander. It comes with one belt, I am not sure what grit, but someone suggested it might be 600.

In anticipation of its arrival, I bought the following:

leather sharpening belt

buffing compound sticks:

11b88 black

11b81 green

525 white

HF1 white

micron film belt 9 mic.

belt cleaner

Am I missing any gaps? I don't have any blades that need reprofiling so I didn't buy any coarser belts but what grit(s) do you recommend for reprofiling?

Can you relate all of the buffing compounds to grits for me? I pretty much understand grits and know what grits I would want if I were using stones.
 
It depends on what you are reprofiling as to what belts I would recommend for that... a thick AXE, a large chopper, or a small folder blade? If the former then something like a 36 grit ceramic belt initially, the large chopper a 60 or 80 grit ceramic, and the folder a 120 grit. Keep in mind, with a machine moving that fast the edge will get very hot very fast when you get into finer grits (say 600 grit and above) so be very very careful - light pressure, move quickly on a pass, and dunk in water every pass.

Others more familiar w/ this specific machine will be by soon to chime in with more expertise on this than I. What I posted are just general guide lines/recommendations.
 
What did you have in mind? Are you planning to get the edges to a perfect mirror polish? Because for just sharpening, it's really fine if you have a few gaps.

The belts I ordered are:
-240 grit
-400 grit
-800 grit
-1400 grit
-2000 grit(6 micron)

The ones I use are the 240, 400, and 2000 grit 3M Trizact belts from Lee Valley Tools:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=66268&cat=1,43072

Fantastic and handles all general sharpening needs. If you have significant chipping or you need to change the angle on your edges, you'll want to throw in a 120 grit belt, or maybe even down to 80 grit(but I'd be careful with that one).
http://www.knifemaking.com/category-s/856.htm

Your buffing compounds are too excessive, and it would get too expensive to load up different leather belts for each different compound. I personally just use Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish on a felt belt after the 2000 grit Trizact. It usually has a somewhat cloudy mirror shine, but I haven't had to cut anything tough like cardboard lately, so I typically thin out my blades to the point where no one would really notice if the edge is mirror polished because the very edge itself is less than 1 mm thick, so you wouldn't even see it.

If you're going to regrind your knives, get a 36 grit Norton Blaze, as well as an 80 grit to smooth out the grind lines. But I'd exercise extreme caution when doing so, go slowly, and use a dust mask.
 
What do you mean by my "buffing compounds are too excessive"? Do you mean I have too many different ones? Why would that be a problem? You don't have to have a separate belt for each different compound do you?
 
And thanks for the link to 3m Trizact, that has a micron/grit equivalency:

80/240, 45/400, 30/800, 16/1400, 6/2000

Now I just need to know the micron content of the 4 different buffing compounds I bought.
 
postoak said:
You don't have to have a separate belt for each different compound do you?
Click to expand...

Yes,,, otherwise your leather belt will just work at whatever the biggest grit on the belt is. You can't clean it enough to practically use one belt for multiple grits.
 
postoak said:
What do you mean by my "buffing compounds are too excessive"? Do you mean I have too many different ones? Why would that be a problem? You don't have to have a separate belt for each different compound do you?
Click to expand...
As cbwx34 mentioned, yes, that's a problem. I'm also not sure why you would buy a buffing compound if you're not exactly sure what micron equivalent it would be. All I know is that Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish is finer than my 2000 grit belt and that it puts a pretty clean mirror polish on any edge.

Because you're using a mechanized system that puts an equivalent of 50 freehand strokes per second(depending on individual machine speed of course), it's typically fine to have large jumps in grit/micron sizes. This is why the Worksharp comes with 3 belt grits(80, 220, and 6000), and you really only use the latter two for most sharpening.

I include more belts in the mix because unless there is significant chipping on my edges, I typically start out at 400 grit, go to the 2000, then finish off on the Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish as a final power strop. Abrasive type also matters, and I find that the Mother's Polish even works well on steels like S110V and S125V, hence my preference for that over other buffing compounds.
 
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