Wide belt sanders and glue

Seems obvious that the heat caused by the friction of your belt sander melted the glue. Next time, try removing the glue with a scraper or chisel prior to sanding. You can clean your belts by soaking them overnight in mineral spirit.

I think Lech has the answer. If you belt is just clogged with sawdust you can run some rubber hose on it (with the belt running) to give it a clean up but thats not likely to solve this problem.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Lee, I can’t offer any advise on your problem – but I did learn something I did not know from lechevalderois’ reply. I had never thought of soaking a belt in mineral spirits to remove the glue. Thanks to both of you.

-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/

I didn’t know about cleaning the belts, either. Thanks. As these rolls are quite expensive being able to save 12’ of paper is well worth it.

Part of the reason for the post is that this is a repeating problem. We made the effort to get off as much of the dried glue as we could. At some points the boards had a ridge of about 1/32” It was not possible to get the little bit of dried glue next to the glue line without dinging the board. After all, that’s why you use a wide belt sander.

The other thing we noticed was that the glue line remained. It’s kind of difficult to describe but there was a rounded over ridge right at the glue lines and the wood was sanded down on either side of the joint.That means that the glue was not being removed, even when the board was 99% flattened. We were able to get rid of the ridges by sending the board through at varying angles. Still required a clean up with the RO sander.

Folks have said slow down and less of a cut. It took 20 seconds for a 36” board. That’s as slow as the machine will go. One full turn of the handle would equal 1/16th inch and we would raise the board 1/12th of a turn each pass.

Yes, we really noticed the heat coming off the board and figured that the glue was melting. It had only dried about 72 hours. But I have sent boards thru that were glued 5 years ago and still had the same problem. And on that board it was a resand of a sofa table top after the finish had been removed so there were no remnants of glue. We might have to look at a different brand of sandpaper.Titebond has been around too long.

To add a little perspective to this story the owner of the wide belt sander is a very educated engineer. My group of seven woodworkers, three of whom are also LJ’s, collectively have over 250 years of experience (none of us are spring chickens) (well, two are) And we are smart enough to know that there might be someone out there who knows more than we do or who has had a similar problem and came up with a fix.

I know tis is a long post but maybe it will also help others.

Lee

-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.

Lee,
I don’t know if it will help but I would consider switching back to Tite Bond regular glue. I seemed to have some trouble with III when I tried it. I’ve managed to get the regular TightBond off with scrapers and planes as well as my ROS whether I left a ridge or wiped it off.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Lee,
Thos just got me thinking about this so I went to Franklin Titebond’s web site. Under Woodworking Glues, Product Selector, I clicked the check box called “Excellent Sandability”, and then clicked Find Best Product. It came back with Hide Glue and Polyurethane Glue, and it did not mention Titebond. That surprised me. I really did not think anyone would recommend Hide Glue nowdays.

Steve

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon