Grinder Belts

[Greg Agresta 0]

I'm going to bite the bullet and get a 2x72 grinder. I don't want to buy one of everything, which grit belts do I need most? Lets say the 3 most needed.

[AndrewB 151]

https://trugrit.com/

https://www.combatabrasives.com/

 

Types of belts I'm learning is up to your preference on how well you want your finish to look.  From my understanding it's all on a personal preference.  Everybody here is going to say something different.  So you will probably get different answers on here.

Edited April 13, 2019 by AndrewB

[jake cleland 436]

I generally us a 36 or 40 grit for rough grinding and breaking down the edge after hardening, a 100 grit for cleaning up the lower grit, blending, getting down to sharpening thickness, and finally a 320 to produce a finish from which you can start hand sanding, and take the edge down to zero...

[P Jones 7]

People usually go through the lower grit belts the most. Personally I use 80 grit belts for general shaping and profiling, specifically the blaze ceramic belts. For wood I use whatever cheap AO belts I can find, normally from Combat Abrasives mentioned earlier above. The rest for metal (wood you generally use AO) I use the 3M Trizact belts, and I absolutely love them. They stay good for a long time, the ones I got months ago still holding up. Like Andrew said though, everyone seems to have their own preference and even then its always changing.  

[jheinen 41]

My process is typically 80g ceramic > 120g ceramic > 220g zirc > heat treat > 320g j-flex > 400g j-flex > trizact > scotchbrite. 

 

[Alan Longmire 2,639]

 

[Greg Agresta 0]

Thank you all for the imput, exactly what I was looking for.

[Will Wilcox 262]

Already answered, but in case you want more input...

If you only want three types of belts on hand, i would vote for 60-120-320. If a higher polish is desired, hand sanding is the way to go from then on.