Belt Grinder for sharpening

[Christian Castillo]

Hi,

I noticed how on many knife message boards, everyone is successfully using belt grinders with belts up to 15 or 6 micron belts, then a leather honing belt with compound, and getting the best edges they ever had. Would this approach work equally well with planes and chisels? Has anyone here tried? Thanks for your time.

[David Weaver]

It works fine for planes and chisels, but it can be a detriment for accuracy in keeping the edge of the smoother straight if you use it all the way through to final polish.

For cambered irons, I use a 1200 grit trizact belt and either just a couple of lateral swipes of the edge on a hard finish stone, or some treatment on a leather disc with the green stuff from LV.

Works great on HSS.

For things that need to be accurate, like a smoother iron, you can't duplicate the accuracy and geometric perfection you'll get with a stone for the polishing steps.

I've had the 1x42 unit that LV sells and the kalamazoo 1x42, i like the kalamazoo better, but it does cost a little more.

Great unit with a leather belt to do kitchen knives, though, but even off the 1200 grit trizact belt and a hard stropping, they're good - especially if your wife butchers edges like mine does. There's no reason to go to a polish, she can remove keenness in minutes.

[paul cottingham]

Love my belt grinder. I have the LV one, and use it mostly for stropping, and sharpening knives. I also use it on chisels.

[Wallis Hampson]

Belt sanders work like a champ for flattening the back of drawknives that may have a bow.

[Christian Castillo]

It works fine for planes and chisels, but it can be a detriment for accuracy in keeping the edge of the smoother straight if you use it all the way through to final polish.

For cambered irons, I use a 1200 grit trizact belt and either just a couple of lateral swipes of the edge on a hard finish stone, or some treatment on a leather disc with the green stuff from LV.

Works great on HSS.

For things that need to be accurate, like a smoother iron, you can't duplicate the accuracy and geometric perfection you'll get with a stone for the polishing steps.

I've had the 1x42 unit that LV sells and the kalamazoo 1x42, i like the kalamazoo better, but it does cost a little more.

Great unit with a leather belt to do kitchen knives, though, but even off the 1200 grit trizact belt and a hard stropping, they're good - especially if your wife butchers edges like mine does. There's no reason to go to a polish, she can remove keenness in minutes.

David, I always thought the function of a belt grinder would work best for coarse removal/repair and for powered stropping, I had a feeling that stones would be better for edges that require accuracy. I've noticed some people have managed to use the LV grinding jig, do you believe this could this introduce the element of accuracy that is missing? I'm considering purchasing a belt grinder, but my intention really is to use it on cambered irons, knives, and for fixing up bevels, still, I got curious as to whether I could use it on my chisels and non-cambered irons, the more uses I can relegate to the machine, the more economic it begins to look. Do you mind telling me why you prefer the Kalamazoo 1sm? It is currently on sale at a website, and the website has a 10% coupon, bringing the machine down to about 215$ shipped, which puts it in my budget.

[paul cottingham]

I use mine on my chisels all the time, in fact it is now my preferred tool for sharpening them. With a guide, (or a good, steady hand!) you could do plane blades as well.
With a leather strop, I can get blades sharp enought to shave with, with ease.

[Mike Holbrook]

The Kalamazoo has been a favorite of knife and tool people for a long time, some prefer it over much more expensive machines. Having said that; I bought a belt sander/grinder from Graingers. I got the one I got because it will work with 1 or 2" belts and has a grinding disc too. Some even use 4" belt sander/grinders...These are very versatile tools that can handle a wide variety of chores. The belts available for these machines have improved dramatically in recent years. The Trizact belts David mentions being a prime example. With leather belts and buffing compounds you can get to very fine polishing. Still I use my stones for most normal sharpening of plane blades and chisels because I do not want to remove a bunch of steel. Those belts are moving very fast and things happen faster, they are just not needed for normal sharpening IMHO.

I think over using the belts will just end up grinding blades away too fast, make more errors and reduce accuracy. I have been working with mine for over a year and still have to be very careful and go slow. I assume I will finish anything I do on my belts on a stone. I have been looking for better jigs and techniques to get more out of mine but I have no thoughts of giving up my stones. If you want to grind and polish a whole knife blade from a blank yea, if you just want to touch up the edge on your pocket knife, chisel or plane blade I think it is too much.

[Niels Cosman]

I use a 800 grit AlO trizact on my wet belt sander to sharpen my turning tools

[Aaron Rappaport]

I have wondered whether a belt grinder is substantially neater than a high speed dry grinder. It seems like they both spew metal, but my bench grinder also spews a lot of wheel grit, especially when I freshen up the wheel, and even though I face the grinder towards a wall when I use it. For me, this is a problem because my grinding station is about 2' away from our laundry machines. I'd sure value hearing what people's experience with the belt grinders is in terms of neatness.

[Mike Brady]

They are great for cambered and curved blades on planes turning tools and knives. I also do primary bevels with mine, but finish with stones. Here is a scrub iron I did:

[David Weaver]

I have wondered whether a belt grinder is substantially neater than a high speed dry grinder. It seems like they both spew metal, but my bench grinder also spews a lot of wheel grit, especially when I freshen up the wheel, and even though I face the grinder towards a wall when I use it. For me, this is a problem because my grinding station is about 2' away from our laundry machines. I'd sure value hearing what people's experience with the belt grinders is in terms of neatness.

No, not neater. Stuff goes everywhere regardless of the machine.

My wife's car is about 5 feet behind my belt grinder. I had ground a piece of steel into a specialized marking knife for tracing the iron on moulding planes, and didn't notice that metal dust had settled in a thin layer on the car.

My wife took the car out, drove it around in a light rain and came back, and the dust beaded up on the surface of the car and oxidized (into rust spots), and the rust spots actually oxidized pocks into the clearcoat! I had to buff it out with polishing compound and a rotary buffer.

I have seen the good idea that someone else had to put rare earth magnets near wheels and belts to collect dust. I don't know how well that works, but you will have dust behind the grinder no matter where you use it, and some will settle in front, probably (though I haven't had much in front of the grinder, most of it gets spun behind both the grinder and the belt grinder).

[David Weaver]

the Kalamazoo 1sm? It is currently on sale at a website, and the website has a 10% coupon, bringing the machine down to about 215$ shipped, which puts it in my budget.

Just my opinions:

(I think the LV one is actually made by someone named velo tools or something, so using the term LV is probably not quite right, they're just retailing it).

Motor - better on the kalamazoo, it's a baldor motor. You'll likely go with an AO smith nema 48 frame motor on the LV grinder (1/4 hp) because it makes economic sense. The baldor motor is stronger, even more than the hp difference indiciates

Rest - the LV machine has a better rest. There is enough stamped steel in the platen area of the kalamazoo to move the rest around to be able to get a steeper angle on the rest (IIRC, it goes around 45 degrees before it bottoms out - i use it freehand when I use it, so I don't pay much attention to the rests unless I'm grinding to a line on steel, and then I use it at 90 degrees, anyway)

Tracking / Wheels - the kalamazoo has better wheels and the belt tracks with a lot more conviction. You can move the belt around on the LV machine, you you will end up learning to adjust how you use the iron on the belt to keep it tracking in the middle. Not a big deal, but the kalamazoo is better.

Speed - the kalamazoo belt speed is a little slower. I prefer the speed it moves at, just because the higher speed on the LV grinder would be suitable with double the power, I think. With a fine belt, if you use an iron on the platen, you can burn it pretty easily with either one, I'd think. Off the platen with higher tension on the belt, and there's no real issue.

I got my kalamazoo from enco, i don't know where it actually ships from. Personally, given the choice again without having bought both, I would only buy the LV if i already had a free motor and I was on a tight budget. It's not a bad machine, i just like the kalamazoo better in use.

[John Gornall]

The LV belt sander comes from Viel tools: http://www.vieltools.com/?l=ZW4

Click the english button top right if you don't read French

They make some attachments for the sander as well a a version that mounts to a small grinder - could be a space saver having the belt on one end and a grinder on the other.

[Aaron Rappaport]

Here is a link to a previous thread on this list that discussed the Viel belt sander and its attachments. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...Sander-Grinder

I was particularly interested in the post by Steve Friedman, 4'th from the bottom, which discusses how to modify the Logersol Knife Jig to use it to flatten the backs of chisels and plane irons. If I'm not mistaken, you'd have to get not only that jig ($35), but also the handwheel with screw ($16). So, more money, but gee I hate back flattening.

[Bob Strawn]

I have and love the Grizzly G1015 Knife Belt Sander. You can order extra Parts and then modify them and make a good range of jigs. The 72" belt is nice, longer belts give more time for a spot on the belt to cool before it gets back to grinding.

That said, if you got the money, Beaumont Metal Works makes the KGM. Sweet tool that!



Bob