Abrasive - Manufactured Abrasives - Other Abrasives and Their Uses

Other Abrasives and Their Uses

Sand, glass beads, metal pellets copper slag and dry ice may all be used for a process called sandblasting (or similar, such as the use of glass beads which is "bead blasting"). Dry ice will sublimate leaving behind no residual abrasive.

Cutting compound used on automotive paint is an example of an abrasive suspended in a liquid, paste or wax, as are some polishing liquids for silverware and optical media. The liquid, paste or wax acts as a binding agent that keeps the abrasive attached to the cloth which is used to as a backing to move the abrasive across the workpiece. On cars in particular, wax may serve as both a protective agent by preventing exposure of the paint of metal to air and also act as an optical filler to make scratches less noticeable. Toothpaste contains calcium carbonate or silica as a "polishing agent" to remove plaque and other matter from teeth as the hardness of calcium carbonate is less than that of tooth enamel but more than that of the contaminating agent.

Very fine rouge powder was commonly used for grinding glass, being somewhat replaced by modern ceramics, and is still used in jewellery making for a highly reflective finish.

Cleaning products may also contain abrasives suspended in a paste or cream. They are chosen to be reasonably safe on some linoleum, tile, metal or stone surfaces. However, many laminate surfaces and ceramic topped stoves are easily damaged by these abrasive compounds. Even ceramic/pottery tableware or cookware can damage these surfaces, particularly the bottom of the tableware which is often unglazed in part or in whole and acts as simply another bonded abrasive.

Metal pots and stoves are often scoured with abrasive cleaners, typically in the form of the aforementioned cream or paste or of steel wool and non woven scouring pads which holds fine grits abrasives.

Human skin is also subjected to abrasion in the form of exfoliation. Abrasives for this can be much softer and more exotic than for other purposes and may include things like almond and oatmeal. Dermabrasion and microdermabrasion are now rather commonplace cosmetic procedures which use mineral abrasives.

Scratched compact discs and DVDs may sometimes be repaired through buffing with a very fine compound, the principle being that a multitude of small scratches will be more optically transparent than a single large scratch. However, this does take some skill and will eventually cause the protective coating of the disc to be entirely eroded (especially if the original scratch is deep), after which the data surface will be destroyed if abrasion continues.