Parm
Respect The Sound System
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Belt sander/grinder advice please.
I searched the web and found a knife I liked the look of. Downloaded a photo, imported into AutoCAD and traced a design roughly based on it.
I printed the design on paper, glued to some mild steel I had (testing the tools & skills I have/need - not making a real knife yet) and cut it out with an angle grinder.
I took it over to the disc/belt sander I bought from Aldi last year and had a go at smoothing out the profile. Not the easiest. It took very little steel off at a time. When it came to cleaning up the faces, it didn't take much pressure for the drive belt to jump off the pulleys. It didn't do a very good job, but I thought I could always try better sandpaper (ceramic?) to make up for the lack of power on the sander and eventually sand by hand.
Today I thought I'd have a go at cutting the bevel in the blade on scrap steel. I've seen homemade jigs that will hold the blade at a consistent angle while it's being cut but for now I just tilted it by hand. I wasn't holding out much hope given the trouble I had cleaning up the faces. I was right. Not only was it a slow process, but the framework on either side of the sanding belt was stopping the steel from moving any closer to the belt. It seems like this belt sander is a nonstarter as far as grinding the bevel goes.
I put a grinding disc in my angle grinder and had a go, but I am not very good at freehand work and it was a mess. That route abandoned.
That leaves me looking for a belt sander that will be up to the task. I don't want to spend £££, but you get what you pay for. What have you got? What do you recommend? I don't want to go down the self build route yet. Out the box and get the job done.
I bought the same one Robin has linked to exactly for the same purpose of knife making. Its a great machine but not the correct tool for this job. Proper knife grinders have between a 25 and 50 mm wide belt and a simple plaatten with no sides. It allows grinding to exactly where its required.
The two knifes ive made have been done free hand with a file. A angle grinder is just too uncontrollable for this job. With a file it should take not more than and hour or twos worth of grinding, even if your going for the 100% stock removal method. Then much time will be spent finishing with grades of emery to get the finish you want.
Sometimes the old fashioned manual way of doing things is just better than a machine, unless you want to spend big bucks