First 2x72 belt order

Gliden07

Gliden07

Well-Known Member
My Reeder grinder is suppose to be shipping this coming Tuesday!! Will still have to set it up but with all the excitement and confusion on motors, drives, benches etc... I forgot Belts!! What good is a shiny new grinder with no belts!! Well my friends I put an order in today with Supergrit!! I got a decent selection for metal and scale material removal I believe? Sure I missed something and will have a couple belts I don't like or use! Until I get my method down its all a big experiment!
 
and so it begins! LOL

Trying new belts and learning how to get the best from them is fun if you let it be fun. Everyone has their preferences based on how they grind, and you will discover that your tastes will change over time as you develop your own style of grinding. And also like everything else, the better your skills the more performance you can squeeze out of any belt, whereas in the beginning some belts will have you chasing your tail.
 
Belts/abrasives are likely the most "personal" choices knifemakers make. There are so many factors that play into how well (or how poorly) a given belt works that it's impossible to say this one, or that one is "the best". All you can do is try various ones, and find what works best for you specific grinding methods/applications.

No matter what you use, my advice is to Use them like they are free! Likely the biggest enemy of any knfiemaker is trying to get more life out of abrasives then they should. Dull abrasives cause all kinds of issues that could otherwise be avoided by just sucking it up and going to a new one.
 
I'm looking forward to playing. For sure!! I'm sure there's a learning curve for the grinder. So no worries. I followed some suggestions from a friend of mine. Got belts for the blades as well as handle material.
 
Just have fun with it. To echo what Ed said, a huge majority of problems when grinding bevels is trying to use a belt after it has passed its useful life. ***HOWEVER*** That belt may no longer be any good for bevels but there is life left in it for handles or just general grinding. Get your money's worth out of your belts, but don't try to do that when cutting bevels.

I learned this the hard way: Don't confuse "it still feels bumpy to me" with "sharp enough to cut bevels" because those two things are not in the same universe. Would you rub that belt on your cheek? If the answer isn't HELL NO then it's not worthy to cut bevels. It goes into the USED pile for general purpose grinding.
 
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