Loading a cork belt with diamond grit paste?

FredyCro

FredyCro

Joined
Jan 11, 2019
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What do you think guys, could this work? The idea would be to take a cork belt with no grit, break it in and load it with one of those cheap Chinese diamond pastes. Use the belt to do belt finish on wear resistant steels.
The idea is that diamond grit would embed in the belt from pressure while grinding/Polishing the knife. Is this stupid, do you think it could work? Have you tried something similiar?
 
I use cork belts with polishing compound to finish my knives. It works very well for finishing from 400 or even from 320 but the most abrasion resistant steel that I used so far is elmax. I see a few problems with your idea - first when I use my cork belt I touch the paste block every 5-10 passes to refresh it. Second problem - from my experience these cheap Chinese diamond pastes are in the form of cream or thick oil so it will fly away when the belt is on full speed. Maybe there is one in the form of hard wax like block.

I guess if you can find one in sufficient quantity and for good price that you can fill a cork belt with it and it's hard enough not to fly away when you run it it will work much better than the regular polishing pastes.
 
Dimitar Popov said:
I use cork belts with polishing compound to finish my knives. It works very well for finishing from 400 or even from 320 but the most abrasion resistant steel that I used so far is elmax. I see a few problems with your idea - first when I use my cork belt I touch the paste block every 5-10 passes to refresh it. Second problem - from my experience these cheap Chinese diamond pastes are in the form of cream or thick oil so it will fly away when the belt is on full speed. Maybe there is one in the form of hard wax like block.

I guess if you can find one in sufficient quantity and for good price that you can fill a cork belt with it and it's hard enough not to fly away when you run it it will work much better than the regular polishing pastes.
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What compound do you use?
 
Trizact at higher speed will polish anything. Mirror polish is where felt and paste are good at. If "belt finish" is your goal, Trizact will do more than fine.
 
Whatever you decide, the cork belt has to be completely broken in first. It takes full speed, lots of pressure from a bar of steel, and 10 minutes to break in a belt. 60 seconds isn't going to even start the break-in.
 
Dimitar Popov said:
I use cork belts with polishing compound to finish my knives. It works very well for finishing from 400 or even from 320 but the most abrasion resistant steel that I used so far is elmax. I see a few problems with your idea - first when I use my cork belt I touch the paste block every 5-10 passes to refresh it. Second problem - from my experience these cheap Chinese diamond pastes are in the form of cream or thick oil so it will fly away when the belt is on full speed. Maybe there is one in the form of hard wax like block.

I guess if you can find one in sufficient quantity and for good price that you can fill a cork belt with it and it's hard enough not to fly away when you run it it will work much better than the regular polishing pastes.
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Ken Schwartz had something like what you're describing
 
FredyCro said:
Which Trizact are you talking about?
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Where I buy there is only one. It's Trizact 237AA. I got them as a suggestion to avoid belt bump. And it worked great. Ordered all grits to see how it worked and realized that a semi polished (high belt finish) can be made with 220 grit equivalent. All others get a nicer finish. 30% more cost than ceramics but lasts 10x more. Not going back to anything.
 
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JoeBusic said:
Where I buy there is only one. It's Trizact 237AA. I got them as a suggestion to avoid belt bump. And it worked great. Ordered all grits to see how it worked and realized that a semi polished (high belt finish) can be made with 220 grit equivalent. All others get a nicer finish. 30% more cost than ceramics but lasts 10x more. Not going back to anything.
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I will give these a go, never heard anything good about them, but maybe people were using them in a wrong way. Do you also need to redress them as gator belts?
 
For wear resistant steels (in my case K390 att 66 Hrc and Magnacut at 63 Hrc) I can't say much happens with the belt grinder after 220 ceramic.
 
Scaniaman said:
For wear resistant steels (in my case K390 att 66 Hrc and Magnacut at 63 Hrc) I can't say much happens with the belt grinder after 220 ceramic.
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I noticed the same thing.

For the fun of it, I sprung the $100 for a 45m diamond belt (I know it's technically not for stainless, but I wanted to try it). The vendor told me to use light pressure and lots of water.

The belt did work, but the bump was pretty bad and it left an uneven finish. It also left some scratches on the flats ... probably because of the seam bumping.
 
I use Noraz or Trizact Gators on 63 HRC Magnacut, and the SunMax structured abrasives above 220 grit. The VSM Self Sharpening AO belts work pretty well, too. I put some leather or very hard felt on the platen to help cushion the belt bump.
 
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