Norton Norax U936 2x72"

Frank Hunter

Frank Hunter

Well-Known Member
I had a new style of belt show up last week through my local American Welding and Gas distributor. This backing and grade have been available awhile but it's the first time I've encountered them. Ed Caffrey has put a thread out on these as well. They're the Norax ceramic abrasive with a much thicker grit depth and heavier backing. Per my calipers they're 150% the thickness of the U254 Norax and look to have about 4x the abrasive. I doubt they've got the flex I'm used to even when worn but at the cost and advertised life they'll be great for blades. I ordered them in the grits I use in my standard Norax progression as of late, 100x, 45x, 16x. My distributor says that currently there are at least ten grit sizes of these available in his catalog so I imagine about anything from 80 grit on down to 5 micron is possible. Cost was around 14.00 each but if I get double the life of a U254 on steel I'll be saving money. I'll keep you all posted as to how these progress, and I have got to hand it to Terry Gremaux at AWG for dealing with my repetitive custom orders.
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We've had these for a while. I've had the opportunity no to use them myself and have also had some customer feedback. For starters, they are distinctly not a hogging belt. Even the X200 isn't that agressive. They do offer a nice even finish (scratch pattern) pretty much from beginning to end of life and life expectancy is loonng. The A/O U264 etc do not do well with pressure - it kills them pretty quick. These U936 ceramic ones tolerate pressure much better.

My biggest grumble is the stiff backing - which of course is largely what gives them their long life. They have little flex and are not plunge friendly.
 
So I'm assuming these are similar to 3M's Trizact CF "Gator" belts? I use the Gator belts quite a bit, so I'll have to give these Norax belts a go.
 
They've got a pyramidal abrasive structure like the Gator. After doing some work with them today I'm impressed but with some caveats. Excellent life, I polished what I could of two knife's mounted bolsters and handles with no appreciable wear on the grit, the slightly open coat let me run a faster speed in some situations as well. Things I noticed-

The high-low structure does give a slight hit-or-miss scratch pattern at times but that's better after the first break in. I suppose this will improve with wear even more.
There is no flex as mentioned. They feel as stiff or stiffer than the Blaze belts. I can't get them into inside corners at all like up in the first finger notch or cleaning the choil out, so these in no way are going to be a replacement for the previous Norax I've been using. I did two handles and had to go to the other belts to finish those areas, but they work ok on the handle flats, pommels, and bolster faces.

I suspect these are going to really rock on doing the blade flats and hollow grinding. I've got a big batch of ten 3" 1095 skinners hardened and I'll give further comments after I tackle the cleanup on those. I ended up with these as a custom order after ordering 50 each of my regular Norax and the rep ended up bringing that quantity of these in the aforementioned grits in due to a miscommunication. If you're wanting some for evaluation let me know and I'll forward you some at my cost + shipping as 50 of each are going to take quite awhile to use up. It was a solid month from the order to their arrival.
 
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