question on belt grinders

[Joe Bailey]

After much thought, I've decided to buy a belt grinder. My question is: what is the proper way to establish the bevel?
(A, B or neither). I've made the assumption that the unit will be designed to rotate the belt in the direction shown.
252630

[David Weaver]

you will like A a lot better. Have a platen that runs about halfway up so you can choose platen or not for whatever you're grinding.

[Joe Bailey]

Thanks David, that was my first thought, but it seems as though the edge would cut into the belt, or at least take off the abrasive particles. Would you do the same thing if you were honing with a charged leather belt?

[David Weaver]

Hold the tool the other way on the belt. On regular abrasive belts it makes no difference to feed the edge in and maybe its in my head, but I always notice that the edge stays cooler when it's faced into the belt as opposed to having the belt pull a long wire edge onto the edge and burn it.

I have a 1x42 with a charged belt, but I have to admit that at the end I don't like the belt that much. It just isn't rigid enough. I'd rather have a clean hard loaded strop if I had to go that way.

I LOVE a trizact belt for general upkeep, though. You can run edges on a trizact belt and then chase the burr with a finish stone and have a very good edge on round tools. The only drawback is that belts that fine can burn edges very quickly if they are backed up by a platen and the point of contact is small (like on a curved blade) - thus the comment to not have the platen the full length between wheels.