How Sandpaper Is Made - Essay Example

Running Head: How it’s Made How it’s Made [Institute’s How it’s Made Sandpaper belongs to the family of abrasive materials, asit is a piece of paper made into a substrate, which has adhesives attached on its top surface, which gives it the abrasive property. This special composition of the paper makes it ideal as a repairing material, acting as a tool which smoothes surfaces or roughens them in order to encourage gluing. It also helps to remove materials from a surface (paint from walls) or removing oil stains. Other than the usage of sandpaper on domestic grounds, its different types and qualities are now widely used industrially, such as in plating of metals, polishing of steel and large pipes, and even in grinding of steel with the help of electricity (Grant, pp. 23-29, 2005). Sandpaper first came out in the 13th century, invented by the Chinese when strong and tough materials of that age, such as shell pieces, seeds, and sand adhered to parchment rolls through natural gum obtained from the trees. In those days, people also made use of natural rough surfaces such as fish skin with scales to achieve results similar to that of sandpaper. However, the first invention, which looked much more like today’s sandpaper came out as glass paper, formed through pieces of glass and sand combined together on paper. By 1716, coated paper came forward in Paris, but the original invention of sandpaper goes back into 1834 in United States by Isaac Fischer, Jr., of Springfield, Vermont. Its grade further improved when it took over another property of also being waterproof in 1916, changing from sandpaper to Wetrodry, which helped improve the grade quality without acting as a seal upon automotive paint refinishing. The most peculiar use of sandpaper is its application as a musical instrument by Leroy Anderson in his famous Sandpaper Ballet (Capotosto, pp. 73, 1991). Sandpaper, no matter with its name specifically refers to surface of paper and sand, in reality denies the presence of both the materials, but is completely made of other organic or synthetic minerals and adhesives. There are many materials other than the simple usage of sand and paper, in the development of this multi functioning piece of paper, which give it its unique qualities. Most significantly, the abrading materials, which give it the aggressive wiping ability comes through the combination of many materials. These include flint, garnet (for wood work), emery (substance used for cleaning metal surfaces), aluminum oxide (giving the paper its metal oxide property), silicon carbide (only used in very fine grits), alumina-zirconia, chromium oxide (for micro specific paper), and ceramic aluminum oxide (Grant, pp. 20-27, 2005). Sandpapers may also be sometimes contain anions of stearic acid which helps it perform as a lubricant, which while painting would prevent the paper from being clogged and thus increase its working life. In addition, when the stearic anion along with aluminum oxide are added to the chemical composition of the sand paper, it makes it tough and strong enough, so that it could even polish hard surfaces such as granite by being even stronger than the stone itself (Capotosto, pp. 73, 1991). Other than materials which give sandpaper its unique properties, there are also other substances used for its manufacture, such as hide glue which was used in the earlier days to attach materials upon the paper, but with the advancement of the paper into being waterproof, resin is used to make the bonds last longer along with a waterproof back side. The paper when as an open coat, with the materials attached to it in such a way, that withholding its abrasive property it also is flexible which increases its efficiency. Sandpaper comes in different types according to the grit size that each paper holds, which refers to the size of the abrading particles attached to the piece of paper. Therefore, the sandpaper is placed into a number of standards according to the grit size that it holds on average. The most common being sandpaper standards are CAMI (Coated Abrasive Manufacturers Institute) and FEPA (Federation of European Producers of Abrasives) "P" grade. However, cheaper sandpapers maybe categorized under the headings of Fine, Medium, and Coarse (FEPA, 2010). Manufacturers of the sandpaper place greatest concern to basic 4 factors of the sandpaper, which are its coating, the back surface, the grade, or the coarseness of the material and the abrasiveness of the material. The back coating of the paper comes in four types, A, C, D, and E. A is designed for light work such as light sanding, which gives a finished look to materials; while as we go from C to E the sandpaper becomes tougher, for other stronger works. Moreover, the coating can be open end or closed, which refers to the fact that it is open ended when the bonds are loosely place and well spaced for softer surfaces, giving it a flexible property. While with close end, the grit is closely spaced and is best used for the smoothening of harder and coarser surfaces. In its manufacturing the first step is of applying the coat on the backing; the bonds are initially forced between a typical weight of fabric clothing (which becomes the main backing of the paper), resin, and 100-grit aluminum oxide, which are then coated with the Make Coat on any one side. Other than fabric, manufacturers may also use rayon, polyester, or cotton for the main adhesive. After the backing has been prepared, the abrasive grains are coated upon it through electrostatic decomposition process, in which the grains are given an electric charge that helps them to induce opposite charges upon the backing, and remain firmly clung upon it. Then another layer of adhesive is placed upon the surface (Borkowski, pp. 56-60, 1992). Next comes the process of applying the minerals upon the backing, which is the most important step in the manufacture of the paper, as it would helps determine the density and quality of the paper. The backing is passed with the adhesive side down, over the pan of abrasives given an opposite charge from that of the backing, which allows the minerals to become firmly attached, which gives it the properties of a long life and fast cutting ability. It is also important that during the process the density of material is kept under careful monitoring, which at this stage help to decide the coat abrasiveness if it would be open ended or closed. The open-end coat would cover about 50 to 70% of the backing of the sand paper, while the closed end would cling to the 100% surface of the paper, giving it the rough and strong property. Once the coat on the paper is dry, it is moved onto the roller where it is further carefully dried under specific temperature and humidity conditions, after which it could be ready for the application of the coat size. Lastly, it is cut into different sizes from those ranging to small hand held paper sizes to large thick sheets, which could even be connected to electricity for other appliance. An additional process, which some companies might use during the process, is the grinding of the materials, useful for high-pressure appliances. Some also attach pressure sensitive adhesives on the back of the sandpaper, or use some variation in the composition of the material to make it less static (Borkowski, pp. 67-74, 1992). Some manufactures may also pass the paper through two parallel heavy rollers, called staining crushes, which crush protruding minerals from the surface, giving it a fine and smooth surface. Before placing it on the rollers, the paper is flexed and bent to break the bonds slightly, reducing its stiffness. The paper is flexed either in a parallel manner, which breaks bonds at 90 degrees, or cross flexing breaks them at 45 degrees, giving the paper more flexibility but also reducing its life (Capotosto, pp. 73, 1991). The number of companies manufacturing sandpaper today is small, as they require large form of initial investments to develop, due to the expensive raw materials, high amounts of energy, and large labor that such a firm requires. While the quality control of the paper is regulated by the government, and voluntary standards established through trade. References Borkowski, J. (1992). Uses of Abrasives and Abrasive Tools. Prentice Hall. Capotosto, R. (1991). “Reusable Sanding Sheets.” Popular Mechanics. p. 73. FEPA. (2010). Federation of European Producers and Abrasives. Retrieved on March 1, 2010 from http://www.fepa-abrasives.org/ Grant, Robert M. (2005). Contemporary Strategy Analysis. Wiley-Blackwell. Read More