since I have a bunch of HSS blades, one simple water stone and I'm already ordering sanding belts, I was thinking of getting a polishing or felt belt for my stationary belt sander and to use it with the green polishing compound, using a guide to hold the angle. can you please help me make the right choice? I was thinking of the felt belt on the bottom of this page, or perhaps the cork belt could work ..? https://www.supergrit.com/products/p...belts-misc.asp thanks a lot in advance.
here's another thought, make one out of 2 laminated pieces of MDF, glue leather one side, chuck it in the drill press with the leather side up, lower and lock the drill so the bottom of the bold is helt in a dimple in the drill press table and strop on the face of the wheel. what do you think?
Guest
Leather.
I actually bought the cork belts from supergrit (strangely enough, it's about 2 miles from my parents, and I went there to get it). It's got more abrasiveness than you'd expect and it's not going to polish the way you're thinking of polish.
Hard felt is more of a burr removal tool, and you're looking for a finished edge. A lot of people will debate that because hard felt wheels are popular, but I don't like what they do compared to leather.
Loose diamond on cast iron is probably a better idea for honing, but the pastes on leather do work well.
What size is your belt? If it's 4x36 or 6x48, leather's really not an option, but if your sander has a disc, you can easily get leather and cut it and glue it to the disc with contact spray adhesive instead. Actually, I like that better than leather belt and it's exactly what I use to finish off my HSS tools.
You'll have to be careful though, because anything at that high of a speed can launch tools, and they're sharp when they're launched.
Guest
You could use your drill press. If you have MDF in general, you don't need to add leather. The MDF by itself is probably a better substrate to put the compound onto directly. When it gets loaded, you can just sand it off and apply more compound or ignore it and just keep adding more compound, though it might be a pain to have to put that on the DP all the time.
IN what i mentioned above, the leather disc, I never use that part of the combination bench sander, anyway, so having a piece of leather glued to it permanently is no hassle. You can use relatively fine sandpaper (I can't remember the specialty belt name that I use, LV sells them, but any silicon carbide in fine grit would be fine) on the belt and then zip the edge across the disc and polish the edge and remove the burr. the whole process is probably 30 seconds on both the belt and the disc.
Last edited by David Weaver; 08-03-2012 at 10:09 AM.
Member
As a closet proponent of power stropping (and power stropping everything, even the things usually recommended to not be stropped), I only like my felt wheel on things that I deliberately want to round: gouges, some knives, and small round bottom finger planes; or that I'm polishing, but not sharpening, like the soles of small round bottom finger planes.
For actual sharpening, I prefer a firmer surface like an MDF wheel, or hunk of MDF for hand stropping, or a hunk of cast iron (I use a machinists angle block). Leather's not bad either, just a little less convenient to make.
Got it (-: thanks! since I use my belt sanders disc I think I'll made 3 MDF wheels for the DP, one for each grit of diamond compound, no leather. It's good to strop flat on the face, right? not on the side like a grinder.
Member
I have a leather stropping disk for my WorkSharp 3000 and wouldn't trade it for anything. In fact I do 99% of my shaping and sharpening on it as well.
"I've cut the dang thing three times and it's STILL too darn short"
Name withheld to protect the guilty
Stew Hagerty
Hi Stew, can you please elaborate on the ways you use the strop?
Contributor
I have both the WS3000 leather stropping disk and a 1 x 42" leather belt for my Delta unit. For knives you won't beat the leather belt for either speed or edge. After that, it starts to depend on what you want to hone and how good you are at doing it. An MDF disk charged with something (green compound works for me) may have a lesser chance of rounding an edge and may be preferable for chisels and plane irons. All IMO and YMMV.
Member
i have a leather belt on my viel belt grinder that I charge with green compound and use for stropping. works great.
Paul
Member
While I now mostly use MDF discs for this, I found several years ago that you can stiffen up a hard felt wheel so that it will not round edges. I simply brushed a generous amount of thin shellac into its edge and let it dry. It is much stiffer and holds compound very well.
Member
I've been using MDF for a decade or so and to be honest I find there's no need for leather to be bonded to the MDF. It would be a good idea if odd shaped blades are what you're honing, like carving chisels. But for a flat chisel or plane blade I think a buildup of buffing compound on an MDF disk provides an nice flat reasonable non-flexible surface that makes for very sharp, crisp bevel and edge.Originally Posted by Matthew N. Masail
Thanks everyone! I ordered some 400 grit Zirconia PSA discs, I'll make another MDF disk for them and I hope it will be good to renew an edge after several stropping. we'll see how hard it is to locate the bevel flat on the disc, but that's the way to go I think because it will be hard to constantly hold the same micro bevel free hand. 5 discs: 400grit zirconia, 6 micron diamond past, 3 micron paste, 1 micron paste and green compound sounds wicked ! I'm excited.
Contributor
I have the leather belt from surgi-sharp. works well. http://www.surgisharp.com/
Member
+1, Surgi-Sharp leather belt from Trugrit and some Hand American CrO paste is what I use with my Viel Grinder. Works great.
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