By the time we get the belts, they should be well seasoned. One thing that Will kill belts is extreme hot and cold. This is one of the reasons I keep my shop in A/C in the summer, and heated in the winter. It is a lot easier on the machinery as well. I had a batch of belts once that were so bad, that I got gun shy of the grinder. to this day, if I hear a slapping or ticking noise from the grinder, I'm ready to run. Hard to concentrate on your grinding that way. I am having very good luck with the new Blaze Belts. I think the hoggers were a step way above what came before. The cooling agent that they use on the hoggers works way better than expected. What I have noticed on the hoggers is that the scratch pattern of the 60 grit belt looks more like the pattern from a hard wheel. Very precise for a belt. The Blaze seems to cut a little longer than the hogger. this is really evident when you change the belt out, and use it for profiling. The Blaze will profile blade blanks out of the bar, faster, and for much longer that even the blaze. A lot of belts want to strip out when hogging metal this way at a 90 degree angle, belt to bar. These things almost don't know when to quit! Same for taper tang work. They are a real value here! The Hoggers cooling agent, fills the areas around the grain, to the point that you don't want to use them on handle material, as it tends to burn the material. The Blaze does just fine here as well. I was having to use A/O for the handle grinding, and Hoggers for the steel. PITA. As I use the Loveless method, with 416 stainless fittings for the guard, and bolts, the A/O was going away fast, sometimes trying to burn the handle even when new. The Blaze could care less that there is S/S on the handle. A good thing! Mike
