A belt was constructed out of 5/8” red grosgrain ribbon and superglue.
I’m attaching a picture that shows the type of ribbon and also two other pictures that show a section of ribbon and the splice area.
This was my first and only try so I’m hoping that in the future the splice will look better.
I cut a 54.5” length of ribbon and then angle cut the ends about ¼” and overlaid the ends about ¾” total – angle cut tip to angle cut tip – and bonded the overlaid ends with super glue.
I may try a more malleable glue next time because I had to work the splice area back and forth and up and down to loosen it up after the glue set so that it would make it past the eccentric roller.
It was stiff as a board and also I had not been careful when gluing the ends and even though they were overlaid perfectly the ribbon was laterally offset slightly, and being held that way by the superglue, as it left the spice area so I had to get pliers and work it sideways as well to get it past the eccentric roller.
I also learned that the angled belt end going up the ramp should be underneath and not on top because it tends to act on the logs as they go uphill.
Another thing about this ribbon is that it has very slightly raised edges on one side so I put that side on top.
It seems to work perfectly. Extremely small amount of log slippage that is self correcting. The belt does not slip on the drive pulley. The loader I bought had a nice wide rubber band around the pulley and it works well.
As long as you have the log loader at the correct angle – front to back – it works great.
The replacement ribbon I bought, that doesn't work very well, is 1/2" wide. This new ribbon belt is 5/8" wide so at the eccentric roller it definitely has to "roll" around the edge so we'll see how long that takes to wear on it.
At this juncture I know nothing about the durability of the belt (the ribbon is 100% polyester) but if it is a problem I’m sure there is a way to make it more durable and if nothing else it was easy to make and the materials are readily available.
