Specifications and Joints for Commonly Coated Closed Abrasive Belt Substrates

Abrasive belt size specifications depend on the substrate, as the abrasive belt is manufactured after the substrate. The large roll abrasive belt is mainly cut into various specifications based on the substrate. The width of the abrasive belt can be roughly divided into the following series.

Classification based on abrasive belt width

• Narrow series abrasive belt: the size is 6.5-5mm in width and several meters in length, which is widely used for grinding in difficult-to-reach areas, such as scissor finger holes, medical instruments and small hand-held tools.

• Medium width series: the size is between 50-100mm in width, commonly used in sanding machines with tensioning devices or in handheld grinding situations. Typical applications include rough grinding of medical instruments, turbine blades, and polishing of golf clubs.

• Heavy-duty grinding width series: width of 100-300mm, requires special fixtures for positioning and clamping of workpieces in many applications. Obviously, its application scenario is heavy-duty grinding.

• Wide abrasive belt series: abrasive belts larger than 300mm are commonly known as wide abrasive belts, which are often used to process large flat surfaces. Manufacturing of wide abrasive belts and corresponding grinding machines is more difficult, and wrinkles are easily generated at high speeds, affecting the processing quality.

Abrasive belt joints

The abrasive belt joint is also based on the substrate. The sand grains and surface bonding agent of the joint need to be ground off first, and then the edge of the substrate joint is ground. There are two types of common joints: butt joint and lap joint, and the butt joint can be divided into straight edge joint and sine wave edge joint.

Pay attention to the rotation direction for the lap joint, and the upper edge should be in the direction of grinding to make the joint under pressure, which is conducive to stability. In general, the sine wave joint is a more advanced joint form, which runs smoother than the straight edge butt joint and is less likely to leave marks or hinge joints.

In addition, many special joint methods have been developed abroad, such as welding joint method, spiral joint method, and wave-shaped splicing. The substrate will have a certain thickness difference at the joint, which will affect the processing quality, but with technological progress, the thickness difference of the joint in the abrasive belt can now reach the level of the rest of the abrasive belt.

In recent years, with the advancement of processing requirements, abrasive belt substrates are developing towards high strength, high wear resistance, long life, low shrinkage, no joints, and high precision.