Joining Sanding Belts

I want to make up some sanding belts to fit my home made sander. I bought some belts in a Tool shop selling surplus tools, which are longer.

The belts purchased are obviously too long so I need to shorten them. The method used on these belts are, butted together at a angle with what looks like a strong adhesive tape on the back.

Belts are coarse grit. Anybody out there in Model Engineer land that can offer a practical solution please, I would be most grateful.

Alan Church

One method shown Here

Another method is to use 'Glassfibre Reinforcing Tape' employing a simple butt joint — see video:

Video

This tape is widely available on Ebay e.g:

Ebay

Joe

Can anyone give a source for the Glassfibre Reinforcing Tape used in the video?

I only seem to find packing tape and plastering scrim tape, and the super sticky thin tape eludes my searches.

Ian P

Use 'Glass Fibre' instead of 'Glassfibre' as your search term...

Chris

Chris

I had tried many different searches and can find lots of tapes, My problem is knowing which one is the right spec, ie, very strong adhesive, very thin substrate, etc.

One on Amazon looks right but gives absolutely no details and the 'manufacturers' name only ever seems to appear on Amazon.

Maybe its me, but I find Amazon products have very little detail in the descriptions, seems I have to buy the product before I know what it is.

IanP

How much difference in length are they ?

Ian.

I want the tape for making my own belts, I am hoping to make them all the same length!

Ian P

Oh! did you mean the length of adhesive tape?

Edited By Ian Phillips on 26/06/2013 09:43:12

these belts are usually preasure bonded,

Bob

I dont mind rigging something up to apply pressure whilst bonding but really I would still like to know where to get this, supposedly easy to find tape?

Ian P

Well I probably bought the wrong stuff, but it was cheap enough to take a punt anyway... and it will come in useful for something else if not for making sanding belts. **LINK**

Chris

I had a look around on the net and it seems as the tape could be a hot vulcanizing kevlar reinforced splicing tape .

Considering that a lot of the sanding/ linishing belt manufacturers also make tapes of various types it could be a proprietrary tape that is not for retail.

There are outlets for Tesa, 3M,Norton etc in the UK so i would try them .

Another was PPI that has listed two people in the UK you can contact for more info.

Ian

Apologies, gents, but I think I was a bit cavalier in my selection of the Ebay link in my earlier post. In his video 'Poroldchap' simply called this stuff 'glassfibre tape'. In the video 'comments', however, someone asks what's it called and where can I get it in the UK and Poroldchap replies 'Try reinforced tape on ebay etc'.

While the stuff I linked is glassfibre and said to be self-adhesive I somehow don't think this is what Poroldchap is using. I now think he's using glassfibre parcel tape. I've encountered the latter on parcels and it is indeed incredibly adhesive — when trying to strip it from cardboard boxes, the boxes tend to disintegrate before the tape strips off the cardboard. Trouble is, I can't see parcel tape wider than 1"/25mm.

Sorry, but I think people should hold back from buying this stuff until the situation is clarifed.

Joe

Joe

No need to apologise, you posted a useful link to a good video, thanks.

I dont think the tape he uses is intended for packaging purposes, I have done some searching and have identified a couple of products that might be suitable but they are expensive (£80 for one reel) so I dont want to buy unless I am 100% sure its the right stuff.

As Ian (slotdriller) said people like 3M might have a specific product for the purpose, if they did I am sure it would be available as 3M are not going to miss out selling a product that (if it holds belts together) would have lots of other uses.

I am going to carry on looking and if I find an answer will post it here.

Ian P

Did anybody have any luck in finding a supplier of tape to join sanding belts? If so I would like to try it out. Thanks, Bob

Hi Gents,

Just a follow-up on this. I had a further root around on Ebay and found a trader with a good rep selling 2-inch width crossweave glassfibre tape:

Ebay

— and ordered up a roll.

A note of caution here — I don't have a functioning linisher but only a Ryobi floor sander in need of new belts. I took a spent belt, split it along the existing diagonal joint and applied a length of 2" tape across the joint. I mounted the belt, tensioned it and ran the machine. Sad to say, the belt split after only a few revs running light. I re-made the joint several times and on one occasion added a 4" backing tape to the main joint but only to suffer the same result. The tape itself didn't split but one or other side was simply pulled off the belt under running conditions.

It should be said that this Ryobi machine only has a single non-adjustable tension arrangement and it's pretty fierce. Maybe the tensioning demands of this kind of machine are just too extreme. Perhaps a linisher with adjustable tensioning would be less exacting. It's a shame but for me the jury's still out on this jointing technique.

Joe

 

Edited By joegib on 05/07/2013 17:21:50

It's been a couple of months since this thread broke off - was it the wrong tape? Did anybody find a suitable tape and supplier by any chance?

Bob

Not me Bob, I've done nothing more about finding a tape or any other method of bonding. Still interested though but just not had time.

Ian P

Thanks Ian, I'm still hoping someone else will enlighten us all!

Bob