crepe rubber for cleaning sanding belts...

[Phil Winn]

How well does "crepe rubber" slabs work for cleaning sanding belts...i.e. drum sanding belts? For a drum sander the crepe rubber slab costs $60.00....the sand paper for one drum costs about $6.00....how well does it work? Last?
Thanks,
Phil

[lou sansone]

They do work.. I use them for my wide belt sander, but instead of 6 bucks for a belt it is more like 50 to 60 bucks a belt, so it makes sense.

lou

[Richard Wolf]

Here's a tip about crepe rubber cleaning blocks and pads; DO NOT TRY AND CUT THEM WITH A POWER SAW. You will know how a Saw Stop works if you do.

Richard

[Joseph N. Myers]

I haven't use the "wide belt cleaning pad" but would imagine that it would work great. The one in Klingspor's is $59.95, 15" x 20" x 1-1/8". Basically it is for drum sanders (>= 15") that getting to the belt with a regular "abrasive cleaning" stick is not easy and/or time consuming. A good example of this is my 18" 4/1 Woodmaster where you got to remove 6+ nuts to get to the sandpaper. Because of that, haven't used the sanding attachment yet. On softwood, the paper would probably clog up in a few minutes making the whole thing useless.

On my 16/32 Performax, the top swings up so the stick works great. (Note: heard that WoodMaster now has a mod to their units to allow the top to swing up/back so you can use the stick instead of the pad).

And I should note, as I have many times, the stick is great for ROS, belt and hand sanders and even hand sanding. Costs around $6 to $8 for a 2"x2"x8" and last a long, long time. BTW, for safety reasons, I stop using them on belt and drum sanders when it gets shorter than say 4-1/2". Then use it on my ROS, 1/4 sheet sander, etc.

Regards, Joe

[Dale Rodabaugh]

Picked one up at Hartville Tool the other day for about $6.00,it works great.

[Gary McKown]

Another tip. In cleaning spindle sanding sleeves or a belt, the sticks work faster if used while the sleeve/belt is running in the opposite direction from previous use. Sleeves and belts are easy to reverse, of course, but not so easy with drums or discs. Sometimes it works O.K. to run the surface backwards by hand while applying the stick.

[Dev Emch]

First of all, the rubber erasers used to clean sanding discs and belts work great. But your pricing seams out of wack! The last rubber I bought was 2 in by 2in by 12 in and it cost me $9.99. I also bought a belt lubricant block for sanding belts which cost me $7.99. So what are you talking about that costs $60 dollars per slab? The eraser I am talking about is that blond colored rubber color which you see in all the woodworking mags and so forth. I use it to clean my 30 inch Kindt Collins Disc sander and my spindle sander and my PC 3x21 belt sander. Its also used to clean the belts on those oscillating belt sanders like the Oakleys.

The last two 30 inch discs that I bought for my kindt collins sander were as follows. Both are heavy duty cloth with Y weight substrates. They also have the blue Zircona Alumina abrasive which for wood is the top of the line. The 40 grit disc cost me $18.66 and the 80 grit disc cost me $14.44.

When you buy abrasives, you need to ask about the weight and type of substrate. Some are cloth and some are paper. Also, the ZA abrasive is man made and more robust and consistant than the older garnet. You can get one more abrasive supperior to this which is cerramic alumina; however, this is more useful for metalworking only. The blue zircona alumina can be used for either wood or metal. Now, of course, if your doing both on a sander and its connected to DC, please make sure you dont allow sparks to enter your DC. I know you all know better, but I need to remind everyone of this just in case.

The address of where I get most of my sanding goodies is....

A&H Abrasives
1108 North Glenn Road
Casper, Wyoming, 82601
Ph. 1-800-831-6066.

These guys have everything! Discs, belts, spindles, etc. Its virtually one stop shoping for abrasive stuff.

Now, when it comes to attaching discs to disc sanders, there is only one good solution. Kindt Collins sells a unique contact adhesive specially formuated for disc sanders. It costs about $15 dollars per quart. This is the best material to use as it makes cleaning the metal disc easy and it makes re-applying discs easy. If any of you have ever dealt with the PSA or other spray on contact adhesives, you will now know much trouble can be had here.

Also, when you buy discs that have pre-applied PSA adhesive, be prepared to pay though the nose. Now there are other companies making these PSA discs for less money than 3-M; however, several patternmakers I have spoken with would not touch them for anything! They do like the 3-M PSA discs; however, these are expensive. So most of them use the kindt collins disc sander contact adhesive. After trying it myself, I am sold on it.

Hope this helps...

[Eddie Watkins]

I bought a small one the other day to use on a 6"x48" belt/ 12" disk sander and it worked unbelieveably well on both the disk and belt.

[Phil Winn]

Thanks for the great ideas....D.E., the crepe rubber item is 15" by 20" by 1 1/8"
or so and sold by Highland Hardware (Abrasive Drum Cleaner # 155305)
and and Klingspor (#WK30030)...both at $59.95. How do you clean the spray adhesive off the alloy drums?
Thanks,
Phil