I have belts up into the thousand(s) grit but I rarely use them. I seam to just use a handful for most work. I start with a 50grit blaze and go to 300 gator or 160 gator. I find if I jump from the 50 grit blaze to the 160 gator then I can go right to 240grit hand sanding and move up from there by hand. I also use the 50 grit blaze for roughing in handles and then jump to 240grit hand sanding/shaping. I think I have developed this system becaus I have a lot of these belts in this grit and it just seams to work for me. plus the gator belts last forever as long as you treat them well and dress them with a fine bristle wide wire brush.
I have finer gator belts up to as fine as thy make and further up with norax belts. But I find the finish becomes problematic as I go up past the courser gator belts. honestly though stoping at 160 gator or 120 gator and about 5-10min with 240 with a steel sanding stick and I'm set. Does not take long. But I found out quickly on in my learning stage that you toss the paper as soon as you feal it stop cutting and use a good lube/oil on the blade while sanding. I found that I really like silicone spray as my lube of choice for hand sanding. A lot of people wrap the paper around there sanding stick. I cut the paper down into strips and spray the back with adheasive spray and stick it to the back of the sanding stick and use the edge of the stick to rip the paper off. Once used I peal it off and attach a new on. Goes rather fast once you get into the swing.
I don't know how this turned into a "this is how I do it" post but as long as you can get good quality abrasives in that size then it's a winner. Me personally would not get a grinder that I could not use gator belts on unless it was a dedicated roughing grinder and I had a second for finish belts. Good luck and I hope it works well for you.
