Not a carver problem but maybe somebody has already figured this one out. Haven't used my belt sander for a while, haven't been doing a lot of large projects lately. Anyway, went to do some smoothing of a large panel made of multiple boards and within a minute or so my belt snapped. Figured no biggy and grabbed a new one from stock and proceeded. This one also snapped after about a minute, this time I thought maybe I wasn't paying attention and caused the problem somehow running it on the edge. Again , new belt and away we go only to have it snap after about 30 sec.
This time I finally had the light come on and knew I probably wasn't the problem. All the belts basically separated at the splice. Obviously the glue used with the backer to join the two halves is failing, my guess is the heat. I know most of my belts have been sitting in the cabinet for a while, when I resupply I search for a good price on what I know are quality belts and buy a box of 10 usually. Now I find I may have a lot of belts or different grits that seem to be worthless.
Does anyone have any experience regarding the gluing of the belts??? I hope there is a way I can at least overlay the joints on the ones currently still joined together and save them. I've thought about using the iron on glue sheets for veneer with fiberglass package tape but would appreciate opinions and experiences from the experiences of the members.
Thx in advance,
Rick H