What is sandpaper?

What is sandpaper?

Sandpaper, also known as coated abrasive or glasspaper, is a type of flexible abrasive material consist of sheets of cloth or paper with abrasive grains bonded on the surface.

Despite the name, in nowadays manufacturing the abrasive material used on the surface of base is not sand, but glass particles, aluminium oxide, silicon carbide, garnet or other specialist grit.

Sandpaper is used to smooth the surface area of workpiece, either as a finishing touch or in preparation for further work. dpaper, also known as coated abrasive or glasspaper, is a type of flexible abrasive material consist of sheets of cloth or paper with abrasive grains bonded on the surface.

Despite the name, in nowadays manufacturing the abrasive material used on the surface of base is not sand, but glass particles, aluminium oxide, silicon carbide, garnet or other specialist grit.

Sandpaper is used to smooth the surface area of workpiece, either as a finishing touch or in preparation for further work.

For different sanding requirements, sandpaper is made in many different grit sizes, different forms such as squares, rolls or pre-cut pieces. Different grades of sandpaper means the difference in quality and density of the abrasives grains, as well as the backing material and the bonding agents. Higher quality materials are often used in industrial-grade sandpaper. Additionally, one key figure of sandpaper is its grit size, it’s number of sharp particles per square inch of sandpaper. The larger the grit size, the more edges there are and the smoother the sandpaper. The density of the grit is important, too. Open-coated sandpaper has gaps between the grits, allowing sawdust to gather so it doesn’t interfere with the sanding, whereas closed-coated sandpaper doesn’t have those open spaces.

So make sure you choose the grit size of sandpaper based on your workpieces you are going to finish. For heavy sanding and removal, you need choose 40 – 60 grit coarse sandpaper. For smoothing surfaces and small imperfection removal, choose 80 – 120 grit sandpaper. For smoothly surface finishing, super fine sandpaper with grit size 360 – 600 is recommended. Many jobs require you to “go through the grits.” This means you start the project using lower-grade grit and use finer pieces of sandpaper as you progress. Each time you advance to a higher grit sandpaper, you remove the scratches from the previous layer.

For heat emission lubricating reason, some sandpapers are designed to be used wet. With water flow through the surface, dust can be kept to a minimum and any debris can be washed away, keeping the surface clean and maximum sanding efficiency and quality.