What exactly are abrasives? An abrasive is any material used in a manufacturing process to make a surface smooth or free from imperfections by friction. The materials most often used on abrasives in order to make friction free surfaces are minerals and metals. In friction reducing machinery and tools an abrasive may be a ball, plastic piece, metal plate or sometimes even sheet. Abrasives are used in many different industries such as medicine, dentistry, industrial cleaning, electronics manufacturing, and aerospace and even in sports. Let's take a look at the properties and applications of common types of abrasives.
Acrylic, calcium bicarbonate and other synthetic acrylics are primarily used as buffers (or rubbing stones) in medical equipment. They are designed to reduce friction in surfaces and decrease wear. Their ability to provide buffing action without damaging delicate surfaces makes them ideal for use in instruments, handpieces, stretchers, castors, handrails and other fastenings. Because of their strength and resistance to abrasion they are commonly used in brake pad liners, pads, siding and the like.
In auto body paint manufacturers the term abrasives work comes up often. It refers to a hard, thick-duty plastic compound that is used in the removal of paint from plastic parts and to harden steel after coating. Unlike solvents or water-based abrasives, they are designed to permanently seal the surface and prevent flowing. This property makes it useful for use in protecting the metal parts from cracking, chipping and peeling. For this reason they are most often used for coating automotive, marine and industrial parts.
How do abrasives remove materials from a surface? They achieve this by driving the grain away. There are two types of grains: soft and harder. Harder grains don't give way easily to friction and abrasion. Soft grains, on the other hand, are more permeable, giving way faster. Both types of grains are generally referred to as high-performance or HPE, which stands for "hard-hire," and are sometimes also classified as "coarse-cast" or "fine-cast."
Grinding and bonding are the main ways abrasives are used today, though there are also many examples of slip bonding and other engineered finishes that bond different parts together. One example is dry boron nitride, which is often blended with a curing agent for extra wear resistance. Other examples include boron carbide, zinc carbide and carbon fiber reinforced polyimide. Many companies combine these different types of abrasives in different blends to produce unique finish products.
One such finish is a textured carbon fiber product. This is done by adding fine carbon powder to an abrasive liquid. The resulting product is then shaped into a block with a sharp edge on one side and flat bottom surface. These blocks can be used in the same way as hard and extra coarse glass abrasives. Because they are textured, however, they can scratch harder surfaces more easily.
In addition to the use of abrasives in finishing and repairing, many different industries utilize them. For example, abrasives are often used during the grinding and polishing processes used by glass makers. They make the grinding process smoother, especially when compared to abrasives, and also provide more resistance to abrasion and wear.
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