Refurbishing Leek Harvester Belts

It sound as though there may be other issues such as pulley alignment issues and to fix they issues they tried to compensate it with modifying the belt.

Check you pulley alignment, and use a flat belt, it would be great if you can get an endless flat belt, but spliced may be more easily available.

Here is what he is dealing with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3EnBZTuO6k

Sponge rubber surface is to hold leeks with out damaging them.

Thanks, ozzb...

after reading the other posts, I realized I was way off.........

have you considered contact adhesive?

they do make belt dressing, its a tar like substance........

bigg is right, contact adhesive.

I've used this product many times with great success.

Scotch-Weld™ Neoprene High Performance Rubber & Gasket - 3M

Brush a light coat onto both surfaces, let dry till tacky, then join the two together.

Get it right the first time, cause you can't take it apart and re-do it.

Some contact cement may hold up. Most contact cement will get hard with time. causing it to fail as it flexes around the pulleys. I would look for a flexible cold vulcanizing adhesive for belts.

Here is some good stuff!

http://www.masterbond.com/applications/rubber-bonding-systems

I would treat the whole belt as expendable. Cleaning off the old sponge remnants to glue on new ls likely to be too labor intensive.

Standard "rubber cement" as found in office supply stores makes a good, flexible bond and can be removed by soaking in hexane (CAUTION, EXTREMELY Flammable). The preferred solvent for rubber cement is hexane or heptane, or a mixture of the two, a.k.a. lighter fluid.

Thank you all for your efforts and comments at a cost of $ 2,000 per belt new and a life span of 3 -6 mths . Wast not want not works well if you can get it right

It maybe be a little more costly but less expensive as a new one. Less time consuming trying to repair the old one. To buy the materials and make the belts yourself. Working with new material you would get a better bond what ever adhesive you choose.

Does the glue bond have to be continuous? If you could have strips of glue at intervals across the width of the belt it might allow the sponge to flex.

We have found that where the glue does not bond between the two surfaces it tends to create a pocket which tends to collect dirt starting ultimate demise of rubber. We are also considering trying different rubber densities for bonding and flexability . A problem we are having is creating an equal flexible bond between flat belt and the rubber ,glues tend to be very static and we are trying to glue two dynamic surfaces and operate in a dynamic situation