I haven't found many options for the belt material when buying wide belts- usually 180 is paper and the coarser ones fabric.? Once you handle and use them, this division will make sense.? No need to pay extra to get atypical belt configurations- go with the default.?

That article confirms my suspicion that the felt platen does reduce chatter but it's never been a priority for me because I almost always flood the pieces with dark dye and belt sand- this is the best way to catch all the surface defects and monitor sanding progress.This wouldn't work if you weren't going to add any color.?

The article suggests that large shops do a lot of belt washing- maybe they're doing a lot of resinous material. For most of my work,? the belts wear down before clogging. You can feel the tooth wearing down.?

I apply most of my own veneers and won't run veneered panels thru the thickness sander unless I'm using thick veneers (>1/24"). The cores are almost always edgebanded and thickness sanded before veneering but variations in glue thickness creates high potential for sand thru if the veneers are thinner. I think there are specialty thickness sanders for standard thickness veneer (segmented or pneumatic platens?)

There is a high risk of sand thru with standard cabinet grade plywood. Anything with a thicker face ply like multi-ply (Baltic birch) or construction grade ply can work but you have to be careful.?

I've sanded nonferrous metals (removing only a couple thousands of an inch at a time), plastics, epoxy and stripped finishes but these materials will wear out and clog the belts quickly.? My attitude is that sandpaper is meant to be consumed.

I've also grained stainless but that shouldn't be done because of the risk of sparks/ fire.?

The machine is also great for dimensioning floating tenon or spline material.? It is easy the creep up on a precise thickness in a controlled manner.? ?Running the material a 2nd or 3rd time thru the machine without changing the thickness setting removes small amounts. Rotate the material so that unequal belt wear gets canceled out.

You can jump a grit size up to 120. But don't skip 120 on your way to 150 or 150 on your way to 180. Those finer belts wear out very quickly.?

Regards

Lloyd