Tools for cocobolo?

P

Plain ol Bill

Joined
Jan 24, 2001
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I am currently making a couple of cocobolo handles and this oily wood loads up rasp's and sandpaper really quick. Looking for suggestions or info on how to shape the handles w/o loading up and using stacks of abasives.
 
Far from an expert opinion but I've worked with Cocobolo quite a few times , everything I tried had the same result, in the end the finished product was nice but it clogged 2 belts and several dremmel attachments as well.
I tried going slower on sanding and then wiping the belt with a rag dipped in denatured alcohol every so often to 'clean' the belt , that seemed to help a little.
Good luck , Todd
 
This is the kind of job I save my used belts for. A belt that's too used to grind steel can still eat up wood real good. Then it doesn't bother me when one gets clogged up and I have to pitch it. On oilier woods you might go through three or four of em but I count it as gravy anyway. For the finer work I use new ones but by then the wood requires so little work and such slow speeds it doesn't load up the belts.
Other than that, an air compressor and a rubber belt cleaner is the only remedy I know of for a clogged belt. I've heard of folks using old tennis shoes for cleaning belts but never tried it myself.
 
bladsmth said:
Wire brush the rasp,and be prepared to use lots of sandpaper.
Click to expand...

sandpaper for sure. I use alot of 60 grit, 120 grit, 220 grit..and so on.
Keep the paper fresh though :)
 
I find when working with cocbolo on any machine drieven abrasive stop sanding often and run a brasss brush over the belt as it runs. the second the dust builds up and heats up it will mat into the belt so don't wait for the belt to get clogged first. When hand sanding sand at an angle or use a technique that dooesn't cycle the dust back into the paper tilt the work to the side.

Abe
 
Bill, 36X likes to eat cocobolo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's just flat gonn'a clog up the finer stuff as you go along :grumpy:

-Nick-
 
I do the same as L6steel, save the worn out belts from 80 to 220 grit for working the woods. Cocobolo and bloodwood seem to be the worst for clogging the belts or sandpaper. Use a rubber belt cleaner often and you should get good results. For sandpaper I go up to 600, but that's just to finish the pins. 320 paper stays pretty good, but the higher grits clog really quick. Really, from a light rub with 400, I go straight to the buffer with no scratch pink rouge.
Rick
 
Well I figured out how to rough profile quickly by using an electric high speed end grinder with a rotay rasp. Now that thing moves wood in a hurry! Back to loading up belts and paper after that however. Thanks guys.
 
Just gonna toss in my 2 cents as nobody else seemed to mention this. Make sure to wear a respirator with this stuff. Some people are more sensitive to the dust than others, but its worth protecting yourself from. I notice my lips get numb and tingly from this stuff and it burns my skin if I don't wash it off quikly. Hate to think what a good dose would do to my insides if I didn't wear the respirtor.
Ed
 
Bill,
when you are hand sanding coco, wipe the sandpaper on your jeans every other minute or so. It unclogs the paper suprisingly well. I only use 1/3 of a sheet per knife that way.
Del
 
*just found out*

I clogged up my boss's horizontal sander pretty good the other day on some Cocobolo.
Thankfully he's been out of town all week , anyway with the constant heat in the shop being over 100 and maybe 80 at night I guess the stuff dried up pretty good , I took a small wire brush and brushed that stuff off and now the belt is almost as new as it was before I started.
I guess it helps if the 'burnt' on dust dries up a bit.
 
First tool for cocobolo is a good respirator. The dust from it will irritate your lungs. I also use a belt cleaner from Home Depot that looks like a big eraser that works fairly well to keep the belts from getting gunked up.
 
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