I had the exact same problem, also with Klingspor belts, also 15+ years old. Yes, it's almost certainly age. The Klingspor folks politely laughed when I told them the belts were at least 15 years old. Their guarantee is something like 1 year.
If you have a lot of them and really want to salvage them, I found the best approach is Tyvek and water-based contact cement. It's actually not that messy, fussy, or time consuming. Cut a piece of Tyvek a little wider than the belt and about 4" long. Coat it and the belt with contact cement. Let dry according to instructions, then apply the patch/reinforcement. The water-based contact cement has a much higher temperature range than epoxy or super-glue. Mainly I use this approach to splice wraps for my drum sander that were self-destructing near the clamp for some reason that has resolved itself.
|