Bosch 1274DVS belt sander question

[Jamie Buxton]

I bought a used Bosch 1274DVS belt sander. The graphite platen was all chewed up, so I bought a new one. The new one looks like a piece of canvas with graphite particles on one face. There are two holes for recessed screws, but that's all. It will screw in place, but I can't believe is it going to stay there. It seems like the canvas will crumple from the force of the sanding belts running over it. Should the canvas be glued to steel plate under it? If so, what kind of glue? It'd have to tolerate quite a bit of heat.

[Mel Fulks]

The ones that are canvas backed are the only kind I've seen over decades. We used to use the stuff on stationary belt sanders etc .Today I see the same type of machines used with no graphite, don't know what has changed . I've seen several types of glues used and don't know of any sold just for that purpose. I used gorilla glue last time and it worked well and in a test to see how easy it would be to remove ,it peeled off pretty easily.

[Michael Kellough]

No glue. There should be a small steel bar that the screws pass through. The bar is supposed to provide binding pressure across the width of the graphite coated canvas. That should be sufficient. Besides, you don't want to get anything between the FLAT platen and the canvas that could create a bump which would cause gouges in the work and excessive local wear in the blt.