Uses of old sanding belts

J

johndfrancis

Joined
Dec 1, 2002
Messages
14
I am sure this topic has been covered before, but for some reason, I cannot pull it up in the search box. I have a bunch of used sanding belts that I just can't seem to throw away. Anyone know of any uses for them?

Thanks!!
 
Cut seam, lay out flat, glue/tack/staple down to your stairs or wheelchair ramp for better gription.

Other that that, they're mostly good for filling up garbage cans.
 
All joking aside, I do recall that Ed Fowler piles his old belts up under his buffer as, well, a buffer for the buffer in case a blade gets snatched out of his hand and thrown to the floor. Less likely to bounce back up and poke you.
 
Seriously, I do have a use for one or two used belts. I use heavy weight, cloth-backed belts and turn them inside out. Then I run them VERY slowly charged with green chrome compound to strop blades as part of my sharpening procedure. The rest go in the garbage. They are consumables. Get over it. ;)
 
You can use them to screw up the grind on an almost perfect finished blade.
The course grit belts I use for rough profiling the heat effected zone from the plasma cuter anything finer then 120 grit gets ripped in half so it can't wreck any blades.
+1 on hanging Zombies
 
jdm61 said:
All joking aside, I do recall that Ed Fowler piles his old belts up under his buffer as, well, a buffer for the buffer in case a blade gets snatched out of his hand and thrown to the floor. Less likely to bounce back up and poke you.
Click to expand...

...and yet that wouldn't be a tripping hazard, whereby you do a face-plant into the buffer and bury the knife you were going to work on into your thigh as you fall...?

Methinks that's probably a really bad idea.

Your suggestion of vertical blinds, however, is pure fu@!ing genius. Brilliant!!!
 
I give mine to the local high school shop class. They rip pieces off for different polishing and rust removal needs.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
...and yet that wouldn't be a tripping hazard, whereby you do a face-plant into the buffer and bury the knife you were going to work on into your thigh as you fall...?

Methinks that's probably a really bad idea.

Your suggestion of vertical blinds, however, is pure fu@!ing genius. Brilliant!!!
Click to expand...
i 2nd the tripping part. i give mine to the local blacksmith guild or a maker that needs some belts for profiling (they can lean on them a bit more then me and now worry about the heat on the part
 
I use them for a few things.
The 120, 220, and 320 belts:
I tear them into 5.5" sections and they clamp in my 1/4 sheet Dewalt palm sander I use for the step between the belt grinder and hand sanding. They hold up longer than the wet/dry paper due to their cloth backing.
I also use them for various hand sanding jobs.
I also flip them backwards and use them to polish edges during sharpening (as has been mentioned)-be very careful doing this!

The courser belts I use for profiling for quite a while.

And then I throw them away.

And yes I also forget to swap them out in time and screw perfectly good bevels, as MeatRobot mentioned.

Brome
 
Matthew Gregory said:
...and yet that wouldn't be a tripping hazard, whereby you do a face-plant into the buffer and bury the knife you were going to work on into your thigh as you fall...?

Methinks that's probably a really bad idea.

Your suggestion of vertical blinds, however, is pure fu@!ing genius. Brilliant!!!
Click to expand...

Actually, Ed's never thrown a belt away. He uses them just like you think. You have to crawl almost 20 feet to the top of the "old belt" pile to get at the buffers.
 
I tack them to the side of my anvil stumps to hold hammers/tongs. I suppose you can tack them to a wall, too.

IMG_3716.JPGIMG_3717.JPG
 
The buffers face away from the wall, the belts are between the wall and buffers - well out of the walking area. I decided to use them that way after watching a blade bounce off of the bare cement floor to the wall, then to the ceiling, then out into the main shop area. That pile of belts absolutely stops a blade, and the blades are usually not damaged.

I would add that a convex mirror on the wall is handy to let you know what is happening behind you, you will notice movement in your periferal vision, thus you lesson the chance of being distracted by someone walking up behind you.
 
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