Scotchbrite belt tracking on 2 x 42

David Mary

David Mary

pass the mustard - after you cut it
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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I've been having a recurring issue with surface conditioning belts, where they want to track a good 3/4" or more to on side or the other, and I have to manually adjust my set screw to bring it back. And then as soon as I put any pressure on the belt by pressing my workpiece onto it, I end up having to fiddle with the machine during grinding as the belt tracks left or right by that amount.

This often makes it extra time consuming to clean up the plunge area. And then of course, when I change to another belt, I have to crank it all the way back. Not on every surface conditioning belt, mind you, but easily 50% of them, and once they start to wear it often gets worse. Which is too bad, because aside from that they do their job a good long time after being brand new. I have tried different tensions by slightly raising or lowering the platen height, but to no avail.

I've just been dealing with it, and I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner to ask for advice here. So, anyone else have a similar experience and maybe some ideas of a possible fix or workaround?

Thanks!
 
That's a weird issue. My home built grinder tracks scotch brite belts OK but not great. Belts with thicker backing (60, 80) tend to track a lot better on my machine. I wonder if you could run a worn out belt that tracks better under the scotch brite belt. You would have to be careful about hitting the edges of the course belt though.
 
How interesting! I'll try it. Thanks.
 
The belts track differently. First it spat the inside belt out. Then I tried flipping that one around, and then it spat the scotchbrite belt off. Was worth a try.
 
What 2x42 do you have? Usually they don’t have enough tension on them which is why belts like scotchbrite don’t track well, same if your doing any slack belt grinding sometimes that can really push the belt one way or another. So maybe see if you can add more tension to your grinder.
 
Thanks Joshua. Yes, actually, slack belt grinding can sometimes push the belt over. I'll give your suggestion a try.
 
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