Thread: cloth / felt belts

I am looking at buying cloth or felt belts for polishing as an alternative to buffing wheels.
The main reason would be that that way I don't need to buy a variable speed buffer.
Plus they are easy to change to switching gritw would be a breeze.

Anyone else here use polishing belts and have some tips to share?

no tips to share. I have however been looking at a lot of lapidary stuff lately to try to figure out a power lapping system and there a many different sizes of belts that fit the description. Let me know if you want some links.

I have some wool felt belts that I bought for buffing. In theory they sound great, slow belt speed, the diameter of the wheel will match. In practice I am kind of meh, about the belts. I find the work ok to good with coarse compounds, but not very well with fine compounds.

What kind of belts are you planning to get? I have seen other types of polishing belts and wonder how they work.

I have wondered about the diamond slurry they sell for putting on belts, it seems like a great idea.

I have a few worn cork belts that have compound on them. I have had a shoulder shrugging, meh experience with them also.

Charlie

My experience is similar to Charlie. They work OK but nothing really great.
If you get a deal on the belts it may be worth a try.

Another possibility is leather belts. I have no experience with them, but I have heard they can be used with various compounds. Perhaps Randydance will chime in.

I talked with Surtech about the cork belts they have. They reckon they are really rough when new - they look like a 24 grit belt, so you have to break them in. Their procedure (different from others I have read about) is to soak the belt for a couple of hours then use compound and scrap steel to flatten it. Once the whole belt is a uniform black colour it is then ready for polishing steel - to a mirror finish they reckon, but the belts cost so much and you needed to order so many at a time that I never followed up on it.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by skipnord

Another possibility is leather belts. I have no experience with them, but I have heard they can be used with various compounds. Perhaps Randydance will chime in.

I have a Tormek with a leather wheel (useless machine for the most part) using the Tormek compounds it will put a very high shine on steel.

USA Knifemakers has cork belts that already have abrasive in them - 120 up to 1000, as I recall, for $7.18 each. Again, never tried them, but the sound interesting. If you can't find them in the index, type in "cork belts".

In that case I am not going to bother. I thought they would be at least equal in quality and convenience to a buffer wheel. If they're not, I'll just have to cough up and buy the buffer.

My experience with leather belts is very limited. One belt was made by handamerican.com, a 4x36, and loaded with chrome ox. It worked very well for sharpening plane blades.
The other example was a large buffer wheel made from walrus skin and used by Bowdins Wedge.
His grandson, now older than me, still has it.
I do want to order a leather 2x72 from trugrit.com

TruGrit - 2x72-Leather

I just ordered 2. Wish me well.