ABRASIVE BELTS: PRODUCTION
The Abrasive Council has thousands of square metres of abrasive cloth in stock, so that it can provide its customers with the product and grit most suitable for what they want to achieve.
The production process for abrasive belts starts in the roll warehouse from where the suitable abrasive cloth roll is taken to make the required abrasive belt. The roll, if necessary, is ‘sectioned’, i.e. divided into rolls of a lower height on a special machine, known as a ‘slitter-rewinder’.
FROM ROLLS TO BELTS
From the rolls, ‘lonsaghe’ are cut, i.e. pieces of abrasive cloth equal to the length of the abrasive belt to be obtained, and finally the two free edges of the lozenges are joined together to form a closed ring: the abrasive belt.
Note how the cut of the lozenges is made at an angle so as to distribute the stress at the joint over a greater length.
FROM OVERLAP JOINTING (V13) TO FOIL JOINTING OR BUTT JOINTING
For many years, splicing was only done by suitably grinding the two free edges of the lozenge and then overlapping them after sprinkling them with a suitable adhesive: the OVERLAID JOINT. In recent years, technical progress has made reinforced plastic films available with which it is possible to join abrasive belts simply by juxtaposing the two edges of the lozenge: the FILM JOINT or butt-joint.
The stress at the splice is transmitted by the film glued onto the rest of the belt. The foil splice has made the production of abrasive belts more efficient and at the same time their quality more consistent. The overlapped splice still has reason to exist, especially for paper belts, especially wide belts for sanding machines, where the cost of the film has a non-negligible impact on the finished product.