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What are they?
Abrasive belts are granulated belts that rotate by means of a pulley system to sand surfaces or parts.
These are used to work finishes on materials such as: wood, metal, plastic, rubber, varnish, glass and more.
There are different types and sizes, it is important that each professional can identify their needs to achieve the expected results in the treatment and finishing of the surface.
Some advantages of working with abrasive belts are: they improve the performance of your work, the costs are affordable and the results are generous, they can be used on different types of materials, automatic, manual and semi-automatic machines. Finally, several belts achieve up to 3 functions at the same time such as cutting, grinding and sanding.
It is important to mention that they are among the most widely used tools in the industry due to their transformation capacity, useful life and performance.
Characteristics (how it is constituted)
They can be made of fabric, paper or fleece.
Flexible cloth sandpaper: they have a wide degree of flexibility, which allows some of them to have less or more rigidity. Some advantages are: adaptability, resistance and useful life.
Paper sandpaper: resistance to high temperatures (thermal stability). Its dimensional balance allows working with flat surfaces.
Rigid cloth sandpaper: faster surface roughing. Unlike flexible cloth, this one is more aggressive and does not take care of the surface finish as much.
Due to their material, they can withstand tensile stresses during sanding.
Measures
There are different sizes of strips, that is why we invite you to recognize the characteristics of your surface or part and then the finishes.
- Narrow strips (120 mm) : They are mainly used on wood and metal surfaces. The purpose is to correct flaws and/or to perform polishing.
- Wide belts (over 600 mm): Homogeneous finishes on parts or surfaces. They are mainly used to work on flat surfaces.
- Short length belts (less than 600 mm): Ideal for working surfaces or small parts. An important advantage is that it facilitates the work in limited accesses.
- Long belts (4,500 mm): Used in cross sanding machines. Achieves excellent finishes on metal surfaces.
Types of abrasive belts
Abrasive cutting belts
There are thin-cutting belts, which are designed to cut different types of materials such as iron, steel and stainless steel. These bands allow you to obtain a fast, precise and clean cut.
On the other hand, there are the classic cutters. These are used for cutting aluminum, bronze and brass. In addition to achieving great results in concrete, marble and granite.
Abrasive grinding belts
Their main function is to flatten the weld bead. There are several types of grinding belts and they are the following:
Roughing for metals: structural steels, steels, irons, weld seams, among others.
Roughing for stainless steel.
Roughing concrete/stone.
Aluminum, brass, copper and bronze roughing.
Abrasive sanding belts
Grinding and sanding on non-metallic surfaces.
Roughing and sanding on metallic surfaces.
Care
Some basic care to ensure the performance of the belts are:
- Before use, check the abrasive belt for cuts and imperfections.
- Respect the direction of rotation of the support.
- Avoid friction between belts to prevent wear.
- Avoid a humid environment.
- Keep your bands in an environment with stable temperatures. Ideally 15 to 25 degrees C.
- When storing them, make sure that they are free of tension. Do this while they are not in use.
- Make sure you have hangers ready to keep them organized and free of objects that could damage them.
- If you have a break while working with them, deactivate the machine's tensioner.
