Abrasives : Definition, Types and Sample Products

What are Abrasives?

Abrasive are materials that are commonly used in finishing a product or a piece of work by extensive rubbing which resulted for an item to be smooth.  Before a workpiece final touches it is being polished by scratching it with the use of abrasive to get a smooth texture and smooth surface which include the process of roughening as in satin, matte or beaded finishes. Great examples of abrasives are sandpaper, pumice, sand and emery. Every one of these said material has various hardness which are used in particular applications.

As abrasives are widely use in different applications such as in industrial, commercial, technological and commonly as in domestic used. With these matter abrasives has different variation in chemical and physical compositions, sizes and shapes. What are the common uses for abrasives? This includes buffing, sharpening, polishing, grinding, lapping, honing, cutting, sanding and drilling.

Types of Abrasives

Abrasives are designed for different applications. Common organic abrasive are minerals and others are synthetic which comes in various shape prior to its application. There are two commonly known types of abrasives the coated and the bonded abrasives. These are manufactured abrasive such as wheels, belts blocks, discs, rods, sheets & loose grains.

Coated abrasives are the common types of abrasives that are used in everyday living such as sand papers. These types of abrasives consist of metal, cloth, paper or rubbers which are coated with abrasive which acts as a bonding substance. Another good example of coated abrasive is the edge of a matchbox.

Bonded Abrasives are commonly solid materials and not coated with adhesives or any mineral with it. One commonly known bonded abrasive is aluminium oxide. These abrasives usually have two side that is used for finishing but not the same. Example of bonded abrasive is a sharpening stone which has two different sides with different texture prior to application.

 List of Abrasive Products 

There are lots of abrasive products throughout different industries and they come in different sizes, shapes, texture based of what they are being utilized with. Here are some common abrasive products in the markets.

Abrasives	Coatings	Garnet	Paper	Tumbling Compounds
Belts	Cones	Gear Lapping Compounds	Plastic Blast Media	Wheels
Blocks	Cut Off Wheels	Gem Polishing	Polishing Belts
Boron Nitride	Cutting Abrasives	Honing	Polishing Pads
Brushes	Diamond Compounds	Internal Grinding Wheels	Pressure Blast
Buffing Compounds	Diamond Wheels	Lapping Powder	Rolls
Buffing Wheels	Disks	Laps	Sandblasting Sand
Carbide Grinding Wheels	Drum Tumblers	Metallic Abrasives	Silicon Carbide
Cloth	Flap Wheels	Optical	Snagging Wheels
Coated Abrasives	Flour Abrasives	Pads	Tumbling and Vibratory Finishing Machines.

Singapore Greenbook has a great list of trusted companies throughout Singapore offering a wide range of abrasive products. Browse through the website, check different brands of  abrasives and shop!