VIDEO: What are Non-Woven Abrasives?

Welcome to Saint-Gobain Abrasives. Today Mike and I are going to discuss non-woven abrasives, what they are, how they're used and why. I'm Jim Darocha. I manage our Bear-Tex flat stock and Rapid Prep product families. Hi, I'm Mike Radaelli and I manage the technical wheel business of our portfolio which consists of rapid finish convolute wheels, rapid blend unified, otherwise known as unified in our rapid strip portfolio.

We often get the question what exactly is a non-woven abrasives? It's a synthetic fiber which we take that synthetic fiber and we apply a resin, the binder and it makes a coating backing and then we apply the grain to make a three-dimensional material. The uniform dispersion of the abrasive throughout the web provides a continuous supply of new grain as the old grain and fibers wear away during the use. Non-woven abrasives come in various sizes and shapes such as discs, belts, rolls, wheels and hand pads. They're used on a variety of grinders such as right angle grinding, in-line grinding and today, with the stronger resin systems, we're able to even use this type of product on applications like centerless and cylindrical finishing operations.

Typically non-woven abrasive products are aluminum oxide or silicon carbide. Silicon carbide grain is a sharper, faster cutting and it produces a finer scratch pattern on most surfaces. Aluminum oxide is more durable, it tends to be a longer lasting, and it's more aggressive on certain applications such as hardened steel parts and it produces less discoloration on aluminum.

When would you want to choose a non-woven abrasive? Typical applications include light- to heavy-duty cleaning, deburring, blending, polishing, and finishing but more recently with the advances in Saint-Gobain abrasives and grain technology and stronger resins we've been able to develop coarser and more aggressive stock removal products than what we had in the past. Non-woven abrasives can be used on a number of different materials including soft materials like aluminum to harder materials like ceramic. Examples of where these products are used are blending turbine blades and aerospace polishing, automotive rims, imparting a scratch pattern on sinks and faucets, or polishing golf club shafts.

Now why would you want to choose a non-woven abrasive? Non-woven abrasives are more conformable, which allows them to be used on radiuses of parts. It helps to reduce operator error on manual operations. They have multiple layers which extends their life and advancements in grain and resin technology can help reduce finishing steps and get you to your desired finish faster.

We hope this video helped to better understand the world of non-woven abrasives. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe to the Norton Abrasives channel. Thanks for watching.