Power Twist Link Belt, want a difference !!

[Bill Huber]

I was at the Rockler store the other day and they had a Power Twist Link Belt on the rack. I have been thinking about getting one but well I just was not sure it would be that good.

WOW was I wrong, it is great !!!!!

I have replaced the belt on the old Craftsman within the last 2 years so the belt was in good shape. But when I put the new Power Twist on I just could not believe the difference.

The saw just humms now and does not rumble or anything like that, smooth as silk.

I just turn the saw on now to listen to it run, it sounds so much better.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Old school V belts have lots of stiffness. It makes for rough running and drains lots of power.

[Bill Huber]

Old school V belts have lots of stiffness. It makes for rough running and drains lots of power.

I will have to wait and see how the power part works but the sound in just unreal, so nice and smooth now.

[Pete Bradley]

There are V belts and V belts. The cheap lumpy ones like you get at the hardware store or many auto belts will deliver much poorer performance than a quality machine belt.

Pete

[Richard Butler]

What I find interesting is that the better the tool, the less of an improvement link-belts make and in certain cases, the link belt is noisier and not any smoother.

[Christof Grohs]

I have a General Canadian 8" Jointer I was thinking about throwing a link belt on. Anyone use a link belt on their jointer?

My little Jet bandsaw loves it's link belt.

[chris del]

Its amazing how people claim that link belt is the miracle cure. The fact is that linkbelt is a good product. A handy product to have in the shop as you can make any lenght, any time. No need to stock spare belts for every machine. Also, the lack of continious steel or kevlar cord as in regular v-belts helps to reduce the transmission of vibration from one sheave to another.
Linkbelt is not going to make up for worn, damaged or misaligned sheaves, worn bearings or poor machine quality and design.
Also, if the motor is vibrating and it attached to the machine via steel mounting, the vibrations will migrate anyways.
Because most woodworking machines have small diameter sheaves, I believe that a good quality "notched" v-belt is just as good as linkbelts, and at a lower price. Notched, makes the belt more flexable and help the belt get a better wrap on small sheaves.

[Frederick Rowe]

In January I bought a new Delta Unisaw, 3 HP. The saw started with a jump, and shuddered upon shut off. Once running the saw was smooth enough to pass the nickel test. The motor to pulley alignment was correct, and there were no defects in the factory belts (3), but I noticed a distinct, albeit mild set, resulting in an oval shape without tension. While not severe, I had difficultly manually holding the blade off the belt "hump" when I was setting up the saw and measuring blade parallelism to the miter slot. I even "staged" the belts with the oval ends at 120 degree intervals to equalize the oval shape; with little positive results.

I switched to Fenner Power Twist, and immediately the start up jump decreased by 90%, and the shut down shudder is gone completely.

I completely agree with Chris in that the link belt won't solve a sheave misalignment or motor/blade imbalance. However, by their design, they won't take a set, thus eliminating that as potential source of vibration.

Delta technical support suggested I loosen the belt tension until the shudder and jump decreased. They cautioned that the reduced belt friction might result in a stalled blade in more demanding cuts. I suspect that many saw owners take that route and live with out of round belts and diminished cutting capacity.

In my opinion, if you have similar symptoms, try the link belt. You might just fall in love with your table saw again.

[Richard Butler]

I have a General Canadian 8" Jointer I was thinking about throwing a link belt on. Anyone use a link belt on their jointer?

My little Jet bandsaw loves it's link belt.

While my bandsaw is smoother with a linkbelt, my jointer does not have one. I tried a linkbelt, but it was noisier and not any smoother. I attribute the lack of improvement to the small diameter pulley at the cutterhead and the relative high speed of the motor.

[Pete Bradley]

I have a General Canadian 8" Jointer I was thinking about throwing a link belt on.

I seriously doubt you'd to see any benefit at all on that machine. It weighs over 500lb and there just isn't a lot of room to move on a jointer to begin with. I've got a Yates-American 6" running with a beat up oversize belt that flaps and the cut is flawless.

Pete

[Jerry Allen]

I have an old Summit 6" jointer that I just replaced the belt on with a Fenner link belt I got from Amazon last week. Day and night compared to before.
Smooth and quiet. This machine has machined pulleys. The old belt was stiff and had a set.
I bought it because it had helped smooth out the bandsaw considerably, but the difference was even more impressive on the jointer.

[Pat Germain]

I also have an old Craftsman TS and my experience was just like Bill's. I think that saw design, where the weight of the motor provides the belt tension, is very susceptible to a stiff belt. When I ran my saw with a V-belt, the motor would bounce up and down causing the whole saw to shake and lose power. Intalling a link belt and machined pulleys made a huge difference. I think the new pulleys helped some, but it's likely the link belt accounted for over 90% of the improvement.

It's likely a link belt would be less effective on a heavy tool which uses a constant belt tension. YMMV.

[Eddie Darby]

I have Fenner Powertwist Link Belt on all my machinery.

Drill Press
Table Saw
Jointer
Band Saw
V-Drum Sander
and last....
my furnace motor!

The Table Saw and Band Saw benefited the most from them, in my case, followed by the Drill Press.

Besides better performance, I hope that my motors will last longer as well.

[glenn bradley]

I do see some folks poo-poo these but the combination of link-belt and machined pulleys brought new life to my previous saw. I imagine higher quality 'regular' belts are good as well but went straight to link belts with no regret.

[Bill Huber]

Its amazing how people claim that link belt is the miracle cure. The fact is that linkbelt is a good product. A handy product to have in the shop as you can make any lenght, any time. No need to stock spare belts for every machine. Also, the lack of continious steel or kevlar cord as in regular v-belts helps to reduce the transmission of vibration from one sheave to another.
Linkbelt is not going to make up for worn, damaged or misaligned sheaves, worn bearings or poor machine quality and design.
Also, if the motor is vibrating and it attached to the machine via steel mounting, the vibrations will migrate anyways.
Because most woodworking machines have small diameter sheaves, I believe that a good quality "notched" v-belt is just as good as linkbelts, and at a lower price. Notched, makes the belt more flexable and help the belt get a better wrap on small sheaves.

Well I guess the word claim can be taken many different ways but I do know for a fact the belt helped my saw a ton.
Now if I had machined pulleys and could fine a notched belt that would fit then I would not need the Power Twist. But I don't have all of those items so the Power Twist worked for me.
For me, it is not just a claim it is a fact.