Which higher grit belts?

J

jawilder

Joined
Jun 27, 2006
Messages
2,331
We often talk about which lower grit belts to use for hogging. There isn't much talk about the higher grit belts, such as 320, 400, +...

I have used the Hermes RB 406 J-Flex in 400 from Pops and they seem to work pretty well. I have also used the 400 grit AO belts from Supergrit and they work well, but wear out rather quickly.

What 400 grit belts do you use?

I have never used a grit higher than 400 because it's pretty easy to start hand sanding after that, but what about you? How high of a grit do you go before hand sanding?
 
For metal, I go to 15 or 20 at times. For wood or other natural materials I sometimes go to 800 with the aluminum oxide belts. Frank
 
I use a 400 AO belt and a x22(600 or 800 i think) norton norzon. I am considering trying the 3M gator belt in 400 grit as the 240 git (A65) leaves as good a finish as my AO400 grit almost. The gators and norzon seem to last a very long time. I am a bit new at this and still experimenting. I get my belts from tru-grit. They seem to have a large selection and good prices. Just my rookie 2 cents worth.
 
It depends on how you're going to finish obviously. For belts I use the Klingspor jflexes, especially for wood. For flat grinds the most economical option is to take it up on the disc grinder after 120 grit on the belt. I'm relying on this more and more and many of the serious pros are doing this also. It makes it easy to finish up and keep everything dead flat and parallel, which is essential.

Now if you like really radiused or swept plunges you may have to go back to the platen to clean them up.

Usually I finish at 400 grit then move to hand sanding or to the gators or cork belts. Unfortunately 400 grit jflexes don't last long, I havent tried 707JE's in 400 yet, but my initial love affair with those belts has grown cold. I'm back to buying the LS312 Klingspor jflexes.
 
Klingspor, Hermes and Trizacts (Smooth and Gators).

I prefer the Hermes for handle material.
 
M forge said:
I use a 400 AO belt and a x22(600 or 800 i think) norton norzon. I am considering trying the 3M gator belt in 400 grit as the 240 git (A65) leaves as good a finish as my AO400 grit almost. The gators and norzon seem to last a very long time. I am a bit new at this and still experimenting. I get my belts from tru-grit. They seem to have a large selection and good prices. Just my rookie 2 cents worth.
Click to expand...

I use the A45 Gator belts and love them, but can't use them at all on the spine or wood and they don't like to be used on the edge of the knife. They leave a very good uniform scratch pattern but have their limitations.

I still find that I use 400 grit belts quite often and go through them like water.
 
I asked a similar question last week and did not get one response:eek:

What I have been doing is using the Gator in 400 and get the nice finish and then switch to the hermes 400 J Flex to fine tune the plunge everything else.

I am tempted though to go for the Industrial Abrasives buy 12 get 24 for AO in the lower grits for wood and general sanding.
 
I will second the fact that Gator belts have their limitations. I have used them on wood, G10 and Kydex with good results. I have also used them for sharpening with good results. I had never tried this, but I was told by someone way better and more experienced than me that a brand new gator belt is good for cleaning up a plunge, and it did work for me. I have kind of observed that most people either like the gator belts and realize they have a few limitations, or they hate them and will not use them at all.
 
In the course grits, 60 and 120 I like the 3M967F, 984F; for the fine grits I have found for metal the Norton Engineered belts are tops. For natural materials, I go with aluminum oxide from Klingspor and the Hermes X flexible 200, and 400. I do use the course ceramic belts on the mammoth ivory and silicon carbide belts on the mammoth tooth. Frank
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top