Optimum Grinder Speed

[Ed Tipton]

I have the necessary components to fabricate a new belt grinder. I want to build it to take advantage of some grinding belts that I already have. These belts are 148 inches long and are AL/OX and they are 100 and 120 grit belts, and they are three inches wide. Given this info, What would be a good optimum single speed (SCFM) to design the grinder to run at to serve as a general purpose knife grinder. I already have another 1 x 42 grinder that I can use for the finer detail grinding that will be required, and this grinder will be used primarily for putting in the preliminary grinds. I work only with high carbon 10XX and 5160 steel at this time. At some point, I may consider a wider range of speeds, but for now, a single speed machine will work for me.

[SBuzek]

You could send Bruce Bump an e-mail he has a grinder that runs 148" belts and he could probably give you some good info.
Stan

[george tichbour]

I run my belts at 5500 feet per minute for grinding bevels but would like to slow the belt down to about half that when doing flats to prevent the belt from glazing. Someday I might get around to putting a second pulley on the old machine to achieve that.

George

[Frank Niro]

Why not reconcider a 2X72. All the belt sizes you want. As well I think you will find out tha the 3" belts are actually too wide for a lot of work you may want to do in the future. Frank

[Ed Tipton]

Frank,
I already have about 1800 of the 148 inch belts, and I need to put them into service. They range in width from 4 to 7 inches, and I intend to slit them into narrower belts. I do not have a 148 inch grinder...and have never seen one operate except for my failed first attempt. It was promising, but just not correct. It had excessive vibration, and the tracking device needed to be re-designed. I did actually grind a few knives on it, but I know that it could have been much better. I realize that the 2 x 72 inch grinder is the preferred size, but there is no reason that 148 inch cannot be made to function correctly....and I still have all those belts just begging to be put into service!

[Don Robinson]

Be careful. Old belts tend to come apart at the splice.

[Frank Niro]

An excellent reason why and why not with that many belts on hand . Frank