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Klingspor Abrasives PS36 ( AZ-Plus ) is a stearate coated, semi-open coat Alumina Zirconia on a paper backer. Alumina Zirconia is a tough grain like Aluminum Oxide, but has a property of being hard and brittle like Silicon Carbide called "Friable." This means that when you start with 60 grit, the grain gets under pressure it breaks like an icicle, revealing a fresh new part of the grain that is still 60 grit. From here it slowly wears down like AO making it longer lasting than other ab …

Silicon Carbide Magnified 50x Klingspor Abrasives Silicon Carbide is a sharp, very hard, brittle and closed coat abrasive. Best suited for sanding glass, plastics, rubber, ceramics, solid surface and between coats of finish. Also used with some non-ferrous metals, sharpening of alloys, stainless steel and tooling steel. Silicon Carbide is also sometimes referred to as Wet/Dry sandpaper. First made popular in the automobile industry in the early 20th century, SC has been widely used acr …

More about the images above: What a Stearate coating on top of an abrasive would look like. Notice the cascade look of the stearate. (Stearate coating) The grain does not fall onto the maker coated backer, but rather pulled from below into the resin. This locks the grain deeper into the resin coat making abrasive grain shedding less likely to occur. (Coated Abrasives) Our PS33 Stearate discs, grits 40-320, are NOT top coated with a stearate. Instead, the Stearate is mixed into t …