I found a way to clean wax off belts!

[Greenberg Woods]

Hey guys, so recently I was surfacing some blocks of stabilized bias cut black palm i just got back from K&G. There wasent a lot of work to do, and i didnt feel like digging up a new belt so i used one that i had used before with some waxed ebony. There were those black balls of wax and sawdust we all know and hate that were stock on the belt. But when i surfaced the bias cut faces of the palm "pretty much endgrain" it took the wax right off! I have never seen anything like it. I guess im going to keep one of the blocks as a dewaxer from now on!

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

There is a good reason that black palm is called porcupine wood. The little tubes are like hard quills. Stabilizing makes the soft areas less prone to wearing away and bonds the hard tubes to them, but on the coarse belt, they probably still comb the grit like a buffing wheel rake does a muslin buff.