Cleaning a gummed up sanding belt

[Taffy Evans]

The other week I was using timber I had not used before, I do not know what species, it was white very hard and heavy with no figure [half as heavy again as HR Maple] and I was trying it out for bindings. It worked well as binding but gummed up my drum sander belt something awful, as can be seen in the first two photos.
So I took the belt off to scrap it but decided to try a way of cleaning it. The way I did it was so simple [in this case with this timber anyway] I have got the clogging with rosewood in the past but never tried this.

I folded the belt over a sharp radius, in this case the arm of my table saw fence rail. I then pushed and pulled the belt in a stropping action and the resin build up fell off. In the other photo I have folded the belt back on its self and got the same result. Some stubborn bits needed a fingernail action on it. I then replaced the belt on to sander and run it against a belt cleaning stick, new life into an old belt.

[Kim]

Good work Taffy,

Another method is to soak your gummed belts in some mild soapy water (plain water would probably work just as well but I had nappysan left over from 10 years ago so that is what went in the bucket ) leave the belts to soak 24 to 48 hrs and then lightly scrub or, even easier, use a pressure washer if you have one handy. Most of the gunk will come off in the soak so only a very light scrub is needed and if you have a Gerni, no scrub at all.

This was the first belt I ever ruined on a Performax 16 -32, it had been flogged and burnt very badly as I came to terms with both the limitations of using a drum sander as a thicknesser and Bocote as a truly resilient oily wood that has a dislike to being sanded at any level. I had written this belt off an resigned myself to ripping up the little bit of clean stuff to use for hand sanding. That was until it was soaked, it has since been put back to work on the machine with ' as new' results. The black that remains is only staining in the resin, the grit is clean as cats whiskers.









Cheers

Kim

[Colin S]

Gummed up cloth belts can also be cleaned off with oven cleaner (use it on bandsaw blades and router bits too) , rinse well, dry and you're ready to go. Don't forget also that when a belt loses it's edge, turn it round and wind it on the other way and it'll start cutting again.

Colin

[Allen]

Turning it around for a second lease on life I didn't know. Thanks Colin. I'm going to give that a go.