ceramic belts and high speed grinding?

M

mike-E

Joined
Mar 2, 2013
Messages
400
i recently watched the entrek video series on youtube for the second time and he is running a 8'' drive wheel at 3600 rpm(7500 fpm). ive seen it posted recently that ceramic belts were really designed to grind at faster speeds with more pressure. i was wondering if this will give the belts more life, remove material faster, or both? would it be worth a wasted blank or 2 at first to get used to a big drive wheel?
 
Mine is around 4500 sfpm and it hogs metal off. I don't have anything to compare belt life with but they last a good while.
 
do they actually last longer when ran faster? could a maker actually save money by learning to grind faster?
 
I worked at an investment casting foundry for 12 years in engineering, The last year I ran the production finishing dept.
We used large industrial machines built in house to grind off gates of mostly stainless and high nickel alloy castings.
I did an exhaustive review and testing of belts as we spent about $100K per year on belts. We tested Norton, VSM and 3M.
In the end we stayed with Norton for performance and pricing.

I don't recall the SFM and wheel sizes but they were large and we often used hydraulic feeds to push the castings into the belt.
Some castings we hand held and hand fed.

I'm not an expert but I can tell you what I think - "Yes, ceramic belts are designed for high speed & fast stock removal."
 
Ceramic belts need power, speed, and pressure. They work best with 2HP and up, run fast ( 5000-7000sfm), and lean in hard when grinding. Used right, they can cut a bevel in one pass. They will last longer and cut much more steel if used properly.


The belt speed and pressure against the belt are necessary for the ceramic media to cut right. It also shears the grit to create new cutting surfaces. Run too slow and with too little pressure, the grit glazes and stops cutting well.
 
My Norton Blaze belts last much longer and cut faster and cleaner when using the highest speed available on my 3 step pully KMG clone. In fact, its just a pure waste to run them slow. If you need slow then use the gator belts.
 
I wonder if the confusion comes from the fact that at times we want to do hand held grinding with fairly light pressure.
The "use em like they're free" adage means that it doesn't matter whether it's not cutting because you aren't leaning in hard enough: If it's not cutting, grab a new one. Is that correct?
 
elementfe said:
I wonder if the confusion comes from the fact that at times we want to do hand held grinding with fairly light pressure.
The "use em like they're free" adage means that it doesn't matter whether it's not cutting because you aren't leaning in hard enough: If it's not cutting, grab a new one. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
Point is, do the rough grinding with 36-60 grit ceramics fast & hard. Then slow down & ease up with finer grits.
 
Thanks for the clarification guys. Glad this wasn't a waste today.
DSCF7694.jpg


Never posted pictures of this either, version 2
DSCF7695.jpg

DSCF7696.jpg
 
woodwrkr221 said:
There's a scary thought! My grinding skills aren't up to that. Neither is my 1x30.
Click to expand...

To be honest, a ceramic belt is wasted on a 1X30. It takes about four times that motor power to use one right. Get some coarse blue zirconia belts for small grinders.
 
Mike-e, Is that a surface grinder attachment? Did you design it? Can we see it on a grinder? Thanks, Larry
 
So how does that figure into convex grinds? That's all slack belt, and high pressure doesn't work. I've been using ceramics and basically switching from using a belt to convex, and then grinding some flat or hollow ground blades with it to expose new grit. Am i wasting money convexing with ceramics at all?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top