Backing Materials

Sandpaper is a form of paper where an abrasive material has been fixed to its surface; it is part of the "coated abrasives" family of abrasive products. more...

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It is used to remove small amounts of material from surfaces, either to make them smoother (painting and wood finishing), to remove a layer of material (e.g. old paint), or sometimes to make the surface rougher (e.g. as a preparation to gluing).

Types of sandpaper

There are countless varieties of sandpaper, with variations in the paper or backing, the material used for the grit, grit size, and the bond.

Backing

In addition to paper, backing for sandpaper includes cloth (cotton, polyester, rayon), PET film, and "Fibre". Cloth backing is used for sanding discs and belts, while mylar is used with extremely fine grits. Fibre or vulcanized fibre is a strong backing material consisting of many layers of impregnated paper made from rags. The weight of the backing is usually designated by a letter. For paper, the letters range from A to F, with A being the lightest and F the heaviest. Letter nomenclature is different for cloth, with the weight of the backing being, from lightest to heaviest: J, X, Y , T and M.

Material

Materials used for the abrading particles are:

flint — no longer commonly used;; garnet — commonly used in woodworking;; emery — commonly used to abrade or polish metal;; aluminium oxide — perhaps most common in widest variety of grits;; silicon carbide — available in very coarse grits all the way through to microgrits, common in wet applications;; alumina-zirconia — (an aluminium oxide - zirconium oxide alloy), used for machine grinding applications; chromium oxide — used in extremely fine micron grit (micrometre level) papers; ceramic aluminum oxide — used in high pressure applications, commonly known as CubitronTM a 3M Corp. Trademark who invented sol gel ceramic grains. Used in both coated abrasives, as well as in bonded abrasives.;

As well, sandpaper may be "stearated" where a dry lubricant is loaded to the abrasive. Stearated papers are useful in sanding coats of finish and paint as the stearate "soap" prevents clogging and increases the useful life of the sandpaper.

Bonds

Different adhesives are used to bond the abrasive to the paper. Hide glue is still used, but this paper often cannot withstand the heat generated when machine sanding and is not waterproof. Waterproof or wet/dry sandpapers use a resin bond and a waterproof backing.

Sandpapers can also be open coat, where the particles are separated from each other and the sandpaper is more flexible. This helps prevent clogging of the sandpaper. The wet and dry sandpaper is best used when wet and when using material like acrylic where it leaves a nice smooth feel afterwards.

Read more at Wikipedia.org