Purchased a good used Kalamazoo belt sander. Now, any suggestions for sharpening with it so I don't destroy my SY blades? What type belts and where to find them?

Sweet!

I'm sure that HornDog will weigh in for ya...

good luck! I'm too scared to put any steel near a grinder

Nice! 1x30 or 1x42?
www.leevalley.com has great belts for those sizes.

Get a couple of cheap knives to play on until you get the hang of it, I use 80grit for major reprofiling and then go to 220x all the way to the 9u from leevalley if I want a really fine edge. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

1 x 42. Tried it on an old kitchen knife. Only a couple of passes. Real sharp but had rough edge. Only had 1 belt that was not too rough. Leather belt to finish?

Depends on the grit of your belt.


If you check here:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=48040&cat=1,43072

You can get the 320, 500 & 1200x grit belts. The 1200 leaves a nice finish on its own.

If you want finer then snag some of the 15u belts & then the leather strop belt. It leaves a wicked edge. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

That is the setup I use to fix up my blades after they get worked out! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I am disappointed that they seem to have removed the 9u belts. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

That's a nice sander, crpoc. It is much nicer than the one I use. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do some nice work with that one. Congrats.

Nice sander, crpoc! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Practice and good belts makes perfect, Congrats. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Cool sander. Lee Valley sells some good stuff.

I have an old 1/42 Norton and they are better than the 1/30 by a big margin.

You can do so much with them. All you need other than that to make knives is a
angle grinder with a cut off wheel and a Dremel. A small drill press is helpful as well.

If you want to get started just sharpening knives ,try some old rusty garage sale ones. It might also help you understand how blade geometry works to use a Lansky sharpening system. I have been using my Norton for a couple years and I am still a bit leery of how darn fast I can screw up a edge. It is like using a bench stone except vertical rather than horizontal and at warp speed.

Now that I got you good and worried my next piece of advice is to be smooth and confident in your movements. It will take some time to get used to the tiny adjustments. You might even try taking some old lawnmower blades and trying to put nice smooth edges on them.

Take your time. You have the right equipment and now with a little practice you will be able to put a wicked edge on anything. The most important thing though is to really understand edge geometry and how it works and which type of edges are good for what purpose.

CO,

I picked up some 15 & 9u belts (as well as some leather belts) at LeeValley about a month back in Edmonton.