FILENAMES: Belt1.jpg Belt2.jpg Belt3.jpg DESCRIPTION: These are pictures of the process of skiving a leather drive belt. Posted by Jim Rozen . Jim provided the following description: ================================================================= Here are a three pictures that show how I skive leather belt ends for cementing. These were sort of mocked up with a previously skived belt, so the surface is not as clean as a freshly cut end. But the idea is there. Belt1.jgp shows the overall setup in my horizontal milling machine. The belt is held with a clamp in the one inch wide groove milled in one leg of an aluminum angle. It's a bit tough to resolve but the angle actually clamped in the vise is not horizontal, but tilted up at the skive angle. Obviously it is important to do conventional, not climb milling here. A sharp end mill also helps! Belt2.jpg is another view before the cut, and the tilt-up on the fixture is more obvious. The first time I did this I scribed a line on the angle to help with subsequent set-ups. The line is visible just above the vise jaw. Also you can see the groove on the other angle I am using as the clamp-down. Both the angles have grooves because they are used during the gluing to align the belt ends. Belt3.jpg is a close-up of a finished skive cut. The dark band halfway thru the cut is the joint between the two plies of the belting material. When cutting skives like this it's important to a) angle them the same direction that the factory skive joints go, and b) to taper the two ends on opposite sides so they glue together correctly. Jim Rozen