Belt Sander Knife Sharpener & Power strop

There was a recent thread on splicing belts that Ed (I believe) initiated that discussed this subject. Years ago we spliced leather belts using common old hot animal glue and more recently people have spliced belts with more modern adhesives. Probably most anything will work as the secret is in how long you make the join. Longer is better :-)

I believe that barber's strops were charged with "jeweler's rouge", the red sticks :-)

Look at any knife sharpening kit they all hold the blade with a clamp. You can adapt the same idea to a clamp mounted on the belt sander. the problem is that the knife blade is rather narrow and there is little area for the clamp to grip the blade.

I have one. I switched from rouge to Dico Stainless Steel Polish around 30 years ago. It's *much* better on steel. Rouge doesn't really do anything that I can tell. The canvas side of those strops traditionally is charge with whiting, which is only slightly better than the rouge. The Dico polish cuts steel beautifully.

For plane irons, chisels, and any other cutting tools that have sharp corners, and which will tear up a good barber's strop, I charge a piece of tempered Masonite and use that. It works great, after sharpening with a good Arkansas stone.

Those Dico polishes have some kind of hard wax binder that makes it tricky to charge a piece of Masonite, or shirt cardboard, or whatever. One solution is to wet the abrasive stick with some paint thinner or other solvent. The less-smelly solution is to heat the masonite a bit with a heat gun and then rub the stick on it.

Ed, Did you find any adhesive for splicing leather belts that's flexible enough to go around pulleys and such? I searched and found some recommendations for "Barge" and some other fabric glue that looks like something I saw at Wal-Mart.

I with you on the rouge, I had no luck polishing stainless with rouge but this green stuff they sell at Lowes, Porter Cable #5, seems to do something. My flexcut carving tools come with some "Gold" compound, them are some sharp knives & chisels!

RogerN

A few years back a store was going out of business and they had their stuff for something like 50%- 60% off, I bought a Lansky kit with 5 stones plus a coarse, medium, and fine Lansky diamond stones. The thing I was wanting for the belt sander would hold the knife by the handle, might have to custom make adapters for different handles, and tip the blade off so many degrees to either side so you have full access to the blade.

I've been trying to come up with some sort of clever device that will restrict knife sharpening only on 1 axis, the angle of the blade to the stone. Maybe something like a scissor mechanism that will let the knife be rotated and moved but restrict the angle of the blade to the sharpener. That would let you rotate the blade around for sharpening the tip at the same angle, you could even sharpen rotary cutters if you wanted. With the fixture I have in mind for the belt sander, I should be able to tip the blade for sharpening toward the tip without getting the angle too much out of spec.

RogerN

Somewhere around here I have IRRC a Buck sharpening attachment that would clamp the blade and IRR..has a set of rollers on it that roll on the stone and you can adjust the angle. Ill see if I can find it.

Gunner

Update- My Harbor Freight 1 X 30 belt sander came in yesterday. I put a 400 grit sanding belt on it and proceeded to try some knife sharpening. The knives aren't very sharp right off the sander but a quick touch up on either a strop, buffing wheel, or Lansky with the fine stone, and they are sharp.

I used the sander to sand a skive into a piece of leather 1" belt I got from McMaster Carr. The skive I sanded gives me about 2-1/2" of glued skive on a

5/64" thick belt. What I've read on drive belts they recommend about 5" but since I'm not driving a load with it, I'm hoping half that is sufficient. I charged the belt up with green compound but I'm giving it 24 hours of drying time before I try it on the sander.

I'm interested in attempting to make my own belt sanders, I've read that all you need is a little bit of crown on one of the rollers and make it adjustable for tracking. The HF belt sander had all 3 rollers crowned and it looks like they have a fair amount of crowning. According to Machinery's handbook it's typical to crown at 1/8" per foot, that sounds hardly noticeable on 1" roller width. I hear that if there is too much crown, the belt will walk back and forth and be unstable, the HF sander seems to track real steady, much better than I expected.

RogerN

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Good seller!!

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Gunner

That's a nice selection of sanders, do you use them to sharpen knives?

I tried out my 1 X 30 leather belt on my belt sander with green polish for hard & stainless steel. I've gotten my pocket knives pretty sharp but I doubt they are as sharp as my flexcut carving knives, but getting close. Knives seem pretty sharp after belt sanding to 400 then using the Lansky with a fine stone seems stropping polishes the edge but I can't tell that it's any sharper than fresh off of the Lansky.

RogerN

On 7/14/2013 5:43 PM, Gunner Asch wrote: ...

...

Only if what you want is shown on the website. The "If you don't see what you are looking for, please call or email us!" is entirely disingenuous. Repeated calls and emails were ignored.

I used to be a customer, now I'm an annoyed ex-customer, Bob

Not their sole purpose..but Ive used them to make knives yes indeed.

I buy all my belts from BarbKat, usually during her online sales. I think Ive got some 100 new ones of all types on the hooks. I have at least 6 bags (of 10) for the 6x48 sander, which gets the most general use.

It greatly depends on the steel of your knives frankly. 440 cant be sharpened to the razor edge (nor should it) that high carbon steels can. AUS-8 is about the only stainless (semi) that can be sharpened up enough for surgical sharpness that is commonly available. There are some others..but they are...pricey.

Odd..Ive chatted with her many times. Not in the last 3 yrs though.

Shrug

Gunner

Let me rephrase that. It CAN be sharpened to a razors edge. It just wont keep it very long.

In many cases..not long at all. Even with little use.

Gunner

Most people would disagree. 440 is difficult to sharpen to a really fine edge because of all the carbides in contains. It can be sharpened to a fine edge if you use care, however, and it helps to use a progression of stones. But it will hold its edge a lot longer than plain carbon steel.

I have plenty of both, and I like them both. But there is no comparison in terms of edge life.

ARe you sure that your e-mails got to them -- or that theirs could get to you? In these days of spam blocking, some seemingly normal paths just don't work.

If the phone calls were also ignored (you mean that they did not pick up the phone at all?) -- that is a different matter. However, if they took your information and tried to send e-mail in response, the same problems apply.

I know that one of my nieces can't receive e-mails from me, and someone else fairly local can't *send* to me. And as far as I can tell, it is not a result of my local blocking.

Perhaps given them another chance -- totally by phone in both directions this time? Warn them that you don't currently trust your e-mail. And find out whether they have a record of sending e-mails to you and not receiving responses. Or *don't* have a record of receiving the e-mails you know that you have sent.

Good Luck, DoN.

My filters mark unwanted mail as read, I don't delete it automatically.

I don't know of any case where I've lost an email to a filter. Thunderbird puts them in the "Trash" folder, where I check them. Also, I sent emails to them by the link on their site and through eBay's "Ask the seller a question". Multiple emails that were never responded to.

All my phone calls (3, IIRC) went to an answering machine. None returned.

...

Why should I? There are PLENTY of belt sources.

Thanks, Bob

*Your* filters -- but you don't know for sure at other points along the way. For whatever reason, Hotmail rejects e-mails from my system out of hand. Thus I can't communicate with my Niece. This isn't filters -- it is preventing the initial connection to attempt to deliver e-mail.

And you don't know what the systems on the way from you to the other company may do.

Yes -- my actual *filters* put things into a "purgatory" directory, and I examine those daily to see which ones are real and which need more aggressive blocking.

Enjoy, DoN.