wet belt sanders

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Thu Nov 27, 2003 10:18 am

Some where I have some pictures, I will try and find them after Thanksgiving and upload them.

Kevin Midgley · Post by **Kevin Midgley** » Thu Nov 27, 2003 11:39 am

The messy water spray can be kept down by using magnets to hold a sheet of plastic such as 6 mil vapour barrier in place in front of the belt. Three or four of the thin flexible rubber type magnets will hold the sheet in place. Don't use any type of magnet that might cause damage to you or the machine if the sheet should be pulled off and drop down onto the belt during grinding. Just be sure to remove when you are finished grinding because it will hold extra water inside your machine which might speed up rusting. I like to open the belt change door for that reason too.
I've had good carbide grinding belts that were made in Germany.
Kevin

gone · Post by **gone** » Thu Nov 27, 2003 4:02 pm

The Somaca comes with an acrylic shield that does a pretty good job keeping down the spray.

Patti Rohwer-Nutter · Fri Nov 28, 2003 12:53 pm

Hi, a newbie here. Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere, but my searches yielded little information.

Do vertical and horizontal belt sanders have different uses, pros and cons, etc? (From what I've seen, the big floor units are all vertical, but my first one will definitely be a tabletop). I have no experience using one on glass, but I have used a small horizontal one on steel (dry) and can't figure out what the difference between the two configurations might be.

Thanks much for any info you can provide!

Patti

Brock · Post by **Brock** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 1:03 pm

I haven't seen a horizontal WBS. Brock

Patti Rohwer-Nutter · Post by **Patti Rohwer-Nutter** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 1:34 pm

There's two at the Kingsley North site posted earlier by Tom White http://search.cartserver.com/search/sea ... r&go=GO%21 and I just found a floor model at CR Lawrence http://www.crlaurence.com/ProductPages/ ... 2136.html.

But I'm guessing everyone here uses vertical sanders, right?

Thanks,

Patti

Brock · Post by **Brock** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 1:38 pm

Well, whaddya know! Yes, I think everyone uses vertical sanders. Brock

Bert Weiss · Post by **Bert Weiss** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 2:29 pm

Brock wrote:Well, whaddya know! Yes, I think everyone uses vertical sanders. Brock

Here on earth water tends to fall down, even in the southern hemisphere. When working with a WBS on the space station, you will have to reinvent the water feed.

Maybe all that nice Australian glass has something to do with their water swirling the other way??

Susan Moore · Post by **Susan Moore** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 2:43 pm

Patti,

I'm a newbie as well but I called Covington the other day and was told the horizontal (their model #460) has a plate under the belt so there isn't much give to the belt - you can only do flat pieces. Apparently the horizontal has a portion of the belt that enables some give thus allowing the user to do rounded pieces.

I have never used one nor have I ever seen one so this may not be entirely correct.

Could someone in the know please confirm this info?

Susan

Brock · Post by **Brock** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 3:05 pm

I don't know much about the table top models, but the Somaca and Bee usually come with a roller wheel, which can be replaced with a metal plate. The roller wheel can produce fine edges with practice. Brock

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 3:37 pm

Patti Rohwer-Nutter wrote:Hi, a newbie here. Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere, but my searches yielded little information.

Do vertical and horizontal belt sanders have different uses, pros and cons, etc? (From what I've seen, the big floor units are all vertical, but my first one will definitely be a tabletop). I have no experience using one on glass, but I have used a small horizontal one on steel (dry) and can't figure out what the difference between the two configurations might be.

Thanks much for any info you can provide!

Patti

well, a large horizontal one would take up a lot of floor space. it's also easier, imho, to hold a large piece of glass against a vertical one resting on something, than it is to support the weight of the item when using a horizontal one.

covington has multiple horizontal wbs.

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 3:38 pm

Jack Bowman wrote:I like the Somaca but I think it's pretty close to a Bee.

Sometimes Somaca has used ones.

http://www.somaca.com/

Jack

i bought a demo model direct from covington at a substantial discount.

Cheryl · Post by **Cheryl** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 11:58 am

Steve Klein was kind enough to share an alternative method of finishing pieces in a class I took with him last year. For those of you now despairing that you don't have a WBS, there is hope. (It takes a while, but there IS hope.)

You can use a series of diamond hand pads - I don't have the grits list handy, but can find them if necessary. You start with an 80 grit belt - the blue kind that they sell in Home Depot for regular belt sanders - to take off the big sharp widowmakers (widowermakers?). You basically set the piece in a shallow tub of water and keep the pad (or piece of belt) wet as you work. Then you move up to the next grit, smoothing as far as you can go each time. For the final finish, we hand-rubbed pieces with a very fine grit (memory failing again).

What you spend is time, rather than $, in doing the finishing this way. Diamond hand pads are available from H.I.S. (hey Brad, why aren't they listed in your resources section?)

Brad Walker · Post by **Brad Walker** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:21 pm

Cheryl wrote:Diamond hand pads are available from H.I.S. (hey Brad, why aren't they listed in your resources section?)

Damned good question, they ought to be. I'll have to get on my website production team about the oversight.

Diamond hand pads are also available from Crystalite (I think they're the same ones HIS has; if I recall correctly, last time I ordered mine from HIS they just shipped to me directly from Crystalite).

Another place I've ordered them from is Master Wholesale. They're cheaper than the other two places, but the service isn't as good.

http://www.hisglassworks.com/

http://www.crystalite.com/

http://www.masterwholesale.com/one/mwi_ ... _pads.html

And I'll get all that on the Resource page next time I do an update there. I have a couple of dozen updates for that page, so will try to make all the changes soon.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:38 pm

Hey Brad, every thought about expanding your clothing line? As in T shirts? I was thinking that they would make good Christmas presents. So when someone asks me "What do you want for Christmas?" I could say "A warm glass T shirt!!"

Brad Walker · Post by **Brad Walker** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 1:20 pm

Chip wrote:Hey Brad, every thought about expanding your clothing line? As in T shirts? I was thinking that they would make good Christmas presents. So when someone asks me "What do you want for Christmas?" I could say "A warm glass T shirt!!"

Well, the only t-shirts I have at all are a few leftover from the first conference in Portland. They might be collector's items by now. If you're interested, email me.

<img src="http://www.warmglass.com/WGWTshirtFinal.jpg" width=250 >

Tony Serviente · Post by **Tony Serviente** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 3:09 pm

Wale apparatus http://www.waleapparatus.com also carries diamond hand pads, and a variety of other useful diamond hand tools. Good service too.

WarmGlass.com

wet belt sanders

wet belt sander -vertical or horizontal

Re: wet belt sander -vertical or horizontal

diamond hand pads

Re: diamond hand pads