Lesson learned: no more cheap sanding belts

[Meffy]

Howdy. Here's a mini-semi-rant offered by way of introduction.

My mate and I just bought a rancher-style house built in 1971 and are making repairs prior to moving in. I've been sanding the floor, tearing off horribly torn up polyurethane, then removing the scars left by years of neglect and abuse... and by the previous refinishing, which was done by someone even more cack-handed than I. =@.@=

Never one to do things the easy way, I'm using a hand-held belt sander to do the heavy work. (I don't care for renting tools, for various reasons I won't go into just now.) I picked the DeWalt DW433K, which is heavy -- but that's good considering what it's to be used for -- and pretty powerful.

Before choosing I read lots of online reviews. Opinions were split between love and hate. The biggest complaints seemed to be that the dust collecting adapter comes off too easily and that it was hard to get belts to track.

I suspect the first complaint comes from the rubbery nature of the adapter, which makes it hard to be sure it's seated properly. If it's in place right it will withstand a lot of tugging on the vacuum hose adapter (optional? ought to have been included!) without pulling loose.

The second complaint addresses the trouble I ran up against. I bought mine at a Lowe's store, and the only brand of sanding belt Lowe's carries is Gator Grit. So I bought a few of the cheap variety and a pack of the ritzy zirconium belts too, and went home to start working. The sander came with an 80-grit belt installed, with which I sanded the floor of a closet to get used to the tool. Worked great.

Next I put on a 40- or 50-grit Gator-Grit belt and started in on the living room floor. Whoa! Suddenly the tracking was going crazy, just as so many online reviewers had complained, and within eight short strokes at medium-low motor speed the belt had gone from perfectly aligned to jammed against the housing, and was happily shredding its edge into a twisted mess. "Bounce, bounce" went the sander. "Scallop, scallop" gouged the abrasive's edge. =>_<= So I replaced the belt and tried again. This time I adjusted the tracking screw every three or four strokes, and it needed it! The darned belt just wouldn't stay put no matter how many times I adjusted the screw.

I don't care to say how many belts I threw away before wising up. Sometimes I'd get a comparatively good belt, and could sand for an hour or more. But just as often I'd get an awful belt that would self-destruct in just a few minutes. Finally I got fed up and took all the remaining belts back for a refund.

Bad news -- Home Depot, the other big box home center in our area, shows on their website that they carry Norton belts. But 'tain't so. Not a one to be had. They now carry just one line. Guess which? *sigh* Yeah, Gator Grit.

Fortunately I can order DeWalt brand belts from the factory service place downtown, and they're pretty cheap ordered that way. I went for convenience instead and got a couple of 3-packs of DeWalt belts at the Northern Tools that's nearer to my place, plus a pricier 3M brand belt to see if it's any better.

Results? Wonderful! The first DeWalt belt out of the pack has lasted an hour or more so far and it still looks as if it'll give another hour's duty before the abrasive has no bite left. Tracks like a charm, just a few tweaks of the knob and it was rock solid.

Now, I've had good luck with Gator Grit hook and loop discs for the random orbital sander. And their plain paper seems okay too. I'll keep buying them. But I'll be darned if I'll ever waste another penny on their belts!

False economy, that's what buying the cheap belts was. Sometimes you can get a deal. Sometimes it doesn't work out. I live, I learn.

[LazyPup]

Far too often sanding belts are discarded prematurely because they become loaded with grit and no longer cut.

They make a cleaning block that looks like a brick made out of crepe sole shoe material. You rub the block against the belt while the belt is rotating and the block will clean the grit and greatly extend the service life of the belts.

You can usually find the cleaning blocks in the same area as the sanding belts in any good hardware or home supply center

[Meffy]

Yuppers, got one of those and I use it. It's kept the DeWalt and 3M belts in good shape. Most of those Gator Grit belts never had a chance even to start cutting, much less get loaded with dust. In fact, they're so nearly unused (except along the left edge, where they're outright ruint) I kept them and have been using them as just plain sandpaper for removing rust from my old B&D Workmate using a sanding block. So it's not been a complete waste, but that's a mighty expensive way to get a strip of sandpaper. :-}