3m gators or Noton norax?

I personally like the Norax much better. The Gators are good belts, as long as you use then in a full surface contact situation. If your grinding where the full surface area of the belt is in contact with whatever your grinding. If you try to grind something like a spine or other thin area, the grit will "strip" off creating a worn down line on the belt....then when you try to grind something "full contact" it produces a raised line on the work piece. To a much lesser degree the same thing will happen with the Norax belts, but it's not nearly as pronounced.

The other thing that gives Norax belts my vote is the finish. My guess is it's a combination of the grit and backing, but for whatever reason a Norax belt leaves a finish that seems finer than the same grit size in other belts.

If I had to split hairs, I would say I favor the Gator belts in 120 grit an heavier, and I favor the Norax in 220 and finer.
 
I feel the same as Ed. I like the norax. They do leave a finer finish compared to the same grit in say ceramic (cubitron, Blaze, etc.) The other thing about the Gators is because of thier construction, (Ie file like) if your doing say a hidden tang knife and you hold the blade flat against the platen to flatten the flats it will round over your nicely squared up guard shoulders.:mad:. But they do work well. I just got ahold of some of the X200 (80g) and I love em.

Shawn
 
I have just the opposite opinion, I love the 3m gators. They last forever, and in the event of the occurance listed above by ED, they can easily be resurfaced. I personally have finished over 300 blades on a single belt, and it still had some life in it yet. I now have them in every grit available and use them exclusively after heat treatment. They do leave a finer finish than alox for their proposed grit size, they run cooler and remove material faster than any other belt I have used.
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See, Im on the fence. I love that the gators last sooooooooo long. I got some of the norax from Tracy, and they seem to be holding up well. They do seem leave a more uniform scratch pattern.
Ive used gators and got a good finish, and they do run much cooler than any other belt Ive used.
I think Im going to go with gators up to A45 then switch to norax 45x, or am I asking for trouble by switching types of abrasive?
 
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