Any Saving A Thickness Sander Belt Burned By Rose Wood?

[LHawes]

Decided to retire my old belt as it was getting pretty beat up and put on a brand new 80 grit belt to thickness sand some Wenge and rose wood sides. The Wenge was no problem but the rosewood was very oily and started to burn and leave burned streaks almost immediately, taking very small cuts. Couldn't even finish sanding the marks were so bad. Tried sanding some redwood this morning and it's just burning and not really getting any thinner. Tried the eraser I Have to clean sand paper with no change.

Does anyone know of a way to save the belt?

THANK YOU

[buffalohunt]

Dan Erlewine did a video about this.
Soak the belts in blade and bit cleaner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0NY9TUXw7Q

[Howard Klepper]

When you thickness, especially with an oily wood, don't feed the wood with the grain perpendicular to the roller. Angling it even a little bit helps a lot to reduce lines of resin burning on to the belt (how far you can angle depends on the width or the sander). Then reverse the angle to the other side with each pass, so you are cross-cutting the previous sanding scratches. Then I do just my final, light pass with the grain perpendicular so the scratches will be parallel to the grain.

[Fathand]

I cut up the damaged belt and use the good sections for other sanding jobs. Particularly good on fretboard radius blocks or a piece about 20 -24 inches long to help shape necks using a shoe shine action.

[LHawes]

Originally Posted by buffalohunt

Dan Erlewine did a video about this.
Soak the belts in blade and bit cleaner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0NY9TUXw7Q

WOW! So very helpful and much appreciated!! Ordered some blade and bit cleaner and can finally save my belts! The belt I was referring to in the OP was brand new and useless - until now! Thank you very much!!

[LHawes]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

When you thickness, especially with an oily wood, don't feed the wood with the grain perpendicular to the roller. Angling it even a little bit helps a lot to reduce lines of resin burning on to the belt (how far you can angle depends on the width or the sander). Then reverse the angle to the other side with each pass, so you are cross-cutting the previous sanding scratches. Then I do just my final, light pass with the grain perpendicular so the scratches will be parallel to the grain.

Thank You Howard, great advice!

[printer2]

I have used oven cleaner to remove the buildup, any tough bits with a wire brush.

[redir]

I would add to the good advice above that a faster feed rate with less depth of cut helps a lot too. Heat is the problem so the faster you get the wood through the point of contact the less it heats up.