George Vondriska

How to Clean Sanding Belts

George Vondriska
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Duration:   3  mins

Want to get more life out of your sandpaper? If you’ve been wondering how to clean sanding belts, good news is, it’s easy. All you need is an abrasive cleaning stick.

Especially important on drum sanders

Of course we want to get more life out of every piece of sandpaper we use in the shop, but this is especially important on drum sanders, for a handful of reasons. Good quality paper for drum sanders ain’t cheap, so it makes sense to get as much mileage out of it as possible. In addition to the cost of the paper, you may be custom cutting rolls of abrasive to fit your sander. That means you’re investing money, and your time, to keep sandpaper on your machine. A little preemptive cleaning will go a long way toward keep your sandpaper cutting. Clean sandpaper is going to cut better, with less chance of burning your material, than clogged paper.

How to clean sanding belts

The simplest approach is to grab the abrasive cleaning stick and run it across the drum. Want to distance yourself a little from the action? No problem. We show you how to make a drum sander cleaning “wand” for just that purpose.

Drum sanders are great

A drum sander is a wonderful tool to have in the shop. It can save you A LOT of time sanding, and give you better results than a hand-held sander. There are a ton of benefits of a surface sander. In order for a drum sander to work correctly, the abrasive has to be put on it correctly. On many machines this is done by wrapping the paper on the drum. This can be a little tricky. Here are tips on how to wrap sandpaper on a surface sander.

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2 Responses to “How to Clean Sanding Belts”

  1. DAVID H

    I use the soles of old tennis shoes.

  2. Trudy Hutton

    An old sneaker with a flat sole will do much the same thing as the cleaning stick

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