# Belt sander



## karloevaristo (Mar 27, 2017)

Belt sander, good or bad idea for thinning knives... just for personal use... something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAXSYT8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Or is there a better option out there?

Karlo


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## Yoni Lang (Mar 27, 2017)

I'm curious about this as well. Do people use sanders like that for knives and just have water on the side to keep their knives cool?


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## Matus (Mar 28, 2017)

Well, all decent knives in this world are either ground on large wheels or on belt senders - and at least part of that work is done after HT, so indeed, that is a very common practice. Now if you just want to do a minor thining, than you really need to have some experience on belt sander without fooling the blade up (grind or HT). As a matter of fact, sharpchef thinned my kurouchi B2 Tanaka on a belt sander and did a very good job, somehting that would have taken considerable amount of time on stones. Also - look at the IG photos that Jon posts - you see a lot of belts in those 

I am a hobby knifemker and have ground a few blades with a 1x30", but I did not dare yet to thin a 'normal' knife on a belt sander yet.

About the cooling - the best is of course is to have water being sprayed on the belt so that you effectively work water-cooled - that speeds up the process a lot, but if you work carefully and dip the cool the knife in water regullarly than that works too (that is how I do it at the moment when grinding knives after HT). It is slower, but that would not matter at home.

We really need someone like Jon to answer this question


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## frog13 (Mar 28, 2017)

I'm still new at a lot of this and have sharpened on WorkSharp, Edge Pro and now stones. I know how fast you can remove steel with the WorkSharp, I can only imagine how fast you can make a deadly mistake if you are not proficient with a belt grinder. I round spines and choils on the WorkSharp but you have to be very careful. First one I did I learned quickly, went up into the radius on the choil and didn't notice the belt cutting into the back side of the blade. Some hand work and some polishing saved it but if I had not caught it quickly it could have been a life long scar. Just my thought on the stand alone belt grinder.


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## milkbaby (Mar 29, 2017)

I'm a hobbyist knifemaker too, and from my experience the advantage of a belt sander or grinder is how fast it removes material, yet this is also is greatest weakness. You can change the blade very quickly but also means you can mess it up quickly too.

Another issue with an inexpensive belt sander is they are usually one speed only which may be quite fast. You can easily overheat your blade and burn out the temper and make it soft. This is especially easy where the blade is thin with little material like at the edge and at the tip.


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## Sharpchef (Mar 29, 2017)

Bad idea if you don`t know what you are doing...

I use a professional one with water cooling (steady water sprayed and compressed air over the blade....) And even with this feature you can ruin your knifes....

If the beltgrinder got no speed control just forget it! It will ruin the heattreatment within parts of a second, especially with the shown one.......

Greets Sebastian.


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## DSChief (Mar 29, 2017)

speed is evil; I'm running a 1725 rpm 3 ph. A VFD is an absolute must, most of the time I keep it in the 700 to 800 rpm range


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## RDalman (Mar 29, 2017)

Judging from the looks of your food, I bet you'll get the hang of thinning on a beltgrinder, try it and practice on cheap knives.. it's not rocket science. Sharp belts and careful. A dull belt means heat.


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## karloevaristo (Mar 29, 2017)

RDalman said:


> Judging from the looks of your food, I bet you'll get the hang of thinning on a beltgrinder, try it and practice on cheap knives.. it's not rocket science. Sharp belts and careful. A dull belt means heat.



I appreciate that man, thanks, yeah for sure i'm going to practice on cheaper knives first... gotta start somewhere when figuring something out, right?

Any advice? Pointers? Any info would be great! Thanks!


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## RDalman (Mar 30, 2017)

I know a few guys that use a sander like that, they have cut out some on the sides of the platen with a angle grinder to be able to get acces with the blade... And then try to find some ceramic belts if you want to remove any serious amounts of steel. Aluminumoxide belts are good for finishing but they wear too fast for removing stock, for that ceramics is better and cooler.


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## RDalman (Mar 30, 2017)

And who doesn't wanna be cool &#128526;


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## Kingkor (Mar 30, 2017)

What do you guys think of the shinko sharpening system as a substitute for a belt sander for thining jobs?


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## zitangy (Mar 30, 2017)

This particular one... as mentioned by RDalman needs to be modified as the platen is way too long and thus suitable for flat grinding. It does not have torgue.

Prefer a model that allows you to adjust platen of the distance between platen and rollers is wider so that with pressure you can get a convex grind on the whole blade face. I use this portion to raise the shonogi line for chipped single sided knives.

IF yu need to thin say half an inch from edge and also to raise edge line due to a big chip.. i place it parallel to the belt.. THis machine can use more torque.

Safety... as the rollers are covered, have the belt running away from you.

Shinko: havent use it for a while... a little too small, got to vary yr pressure, quite easy to change the stones but troublesome and not practical and no joy for me. Limited workspace... as the front upper space is the water tank and usable is left and right diagonally across the center hole as you need to be touching the center area (arbor) so as to maintain the flatness of stone . Having said it can be mastered

Stones are very limited.. and not fond of the grit and feel. The 200/220 grit clots us too much and hence loss of cutting power

Having played with Vertical and horizontal water stones..... both are no joy for me... But i still go back to it once in a while.. trying to make a "discovery" . I am sure that there are some people who loves it...

have fun...

rgds D


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## Duckfat (Apr 2, 2017)

Or is there a better option out there?"

The Tormek T-7 is on closeout right now but that's still no where near this price point. The thing about a grinder like the Tormek is it uses water and blade jigs. The Sander set up is interesting and could be fun on garage sale finds but I'd have rigor fits putting one of my better J knives on a set up like this. I have a Rockwell belt sander in the basement that's been begging for a project so I've been thinking along the same lines lately but mostly I've just been trying to justify the expense of a Tormek. 

Dave


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## zitangy (Apr 2, 2017)

the Tormek.. A vertical grinder water based ... good for convex grind if thats yr intention. I use it once in a while.. only at the very top where i run it diagonally across the top of the circular stone... The sides can be used though for flat grinding.. 

rgds


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## hambone.johnson (Apr 3, 2017)

I had a back and forth e-mail conversation with chris Anderson about this and in the end I do think a belt grinder can be really useful for re profiling and large surface grinding but as he asked it's sort of a question of pay off and are you going to be using it for side jobs where financial transactions are involved or did I want one because I had some fat old ground down chefs knives that needed too much work on stones. 
As a summary of what others have said it's not a tool that you want to skimp on, I think the one chris recommended I get was in the 1500-2000$ range. That's also multi speed, multi position, water cooled, but I feel like if you are going to get a belt grinder you're also quite a bit further down the rabbit hole than the rest of us . 
Keep in mind that if you are doing any wood work like handles or sayas then that's another dimension of use for the machine but again you want a multi position, multi speed machine to be able to handle wood properly


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## Dave Martell (Apr 3, 2017)

I know a guy who took one of these variable speed bench grinders, removed the guards and wheels...














Then installed one of these belt grinder attachments...















Not a great solution but maybe cheap enough for some special projects?


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## Dave Martell (Apr 3, 2017)

After looking at prices, my suggestion seems to be pretty expensive. :Ooooh:


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## Dave Martell (Apr 3, 2017)

karloevaristo said:


> Belt sander, good or bad idea for thinning knives... just for personal use... something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAXSYT8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
> 
> Or is there a better option out there?
> 
> Karlo




I feel that this is a poor option for knife work.


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