Garnets and sandpaper?

[Jinx]

Are/were garnets used to make sandpaper? If so, I wager it’s a very crude and flawed form of this semi-precious stone? I have heard about zircon (becomes cubic zirconium, I believe) being used for sandblasting…maybe it’s a similar idea? - Jinx

[tcburnett]

http://www.woodzone.com/articles/sandpaper/

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Yup. Google, “garnet sandpaper”.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/gemstones/sp14-95/garnet.html

The use of garnets as a gem or gemstone can be traced to prehistoric times. However, the first industrial use of garnet appears to have been as coated sandpaper manufactured in the United States by Henry Hudson Barton (founder of Barton Mines Corp.) in 1878. Its use has grown from that single sample of garnet coated sandpaper, to world industrial uses of more than 110,000 tons per year. In 1994, United States production of industrial garnet was valued at about $14 million, while gem garnet production was valued at only about $233,000.

Many deposits within the United States produce fine gem-quality garnets and three deposits are mined for industrial garnet. A State-by-State review is presented below…

Google, “zirconium sandblasting”.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/zirconium/730396.txt

Zircon refractories and foundry applications are the largest end uses for zirconium. Other end uses of zirconium include abrasives, chemicals, metal alloys, welding rod coatings, and sandblasting.

[Forbin]

Garnet is becoming less popular, supplanted by aluminum oxide, and the new aluminum oxide/ceramic composites, but it is in fact used. My mentor in the trade told me that it was the best abrasive available for wood.
I have not forgotten why.
It seems that garnet particles, when heated, will crack open and expose new jagged edges. This is a plus for an abrasive.
I still use garnet, just not as much as I used to.
Forbin