Posts Tagged ‘materials’

Posted on November 17, 2011 - by admin

Building Materials: Abrasive Paper and Sand Paper

In the wonderful and expansive world of construction and hobby building, there is a vast variety of materials that are necessary for completing projects. In the finishing steps of most projects, there is some form of finishing polish, or sanding, or grinding that is applied to the final product before painting.

We see all of these types of materials all the time, and the projects they effect, but people are sometimes misinformed as to what is actually what. The most common type of abrasive material that is seen by a large portion of our culture is sand paper. Everyone has used sand paper at some point in their lives, and people are very familiar with how it works; rub the rough side on wood to remove material, creating a smoother surface overall. What people do not usually understand is how the actual process of sand paper works.

Sand paper is a great material that is usually some sort of sticky paper, that has been covered on the sticky side with iron specks, or some other sort of metal specks. These specks are harder than the material that they are rubbed against, and therefore will wear away at that material and remove the desired material that is there. The other common form of abrasive process is grinding, commonly found when grinding metal. This grinding process is quite similar to sand paper; there is a stone, that has a specific coarseness to its construction, that is designed to be pressed and rubbed against metal, removing really small amounts of metal.

Metal grinding though typically requires a mechanical source to achieve high speeds capable of removing the metal from the source. That is why they are usually attached to one or two horse power motors, thus creating the system known as grinding wheels. The most common form of grinding wheel is known as a bench grinder, where you have a grinding wheel that is attached to the motor, and point mounted on spindle abrasives onto a bench for increased stability. These angle grinders and orbital sanders can typically be found at most hardware stores or online at Noble Abrasives, and can be picked up for under a hundred pounds.