FreeShip- Garnet Abrasive Media, Medium, 80 Mesh- (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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--> For other abrasives or sands go here: <--
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https://www.etsy.com/shop/NorthernWestStuff?ref=hdr_shop_menu&search_query=sand
Please note not all quantities are pictured.

This is a medium, 80 mesh, garnet abrasive media. Aluminum oxide and silicon carbide are the two main abrasives used world wide. This might be the third most common (there are many other abrasives besides these three, however). Garnet is less expensive than the top two. Silicon carbide is the most expensive. Garnet used to be the most common sandpaper abrasive, called simply "garnet paper". Aluminum oxide sandpaper is the most common today. Garnet is the least "sharp" or aggressive abrasive of the three, unless fractured when it can be quite sharp.

It's also the least hard of the three abrasives. Silicon carbide is the hardest with a Moh's hardness of 9 to 10. Aluminum oxide is 2nd with a hardness of 9. Garnet has a hardness of 6.5 to 7.5. It's can vary in color depending on the source, from Light pink to red to brown or black (and almost every other color). The garnet in this listing is a reddish brown. Pure garnet crystals of a rich deep red are used as semi-precious gemstones. And garnet it a birthstone for the month of January. Garnet is one of the least expensive gems. There are several varieties of garnet (pyrope, almandine, spessartine, grossular, and others). Almandine tends to be harder and is very common, so the abrasive garnet in this listing is probably almandine.

I was searching for non-traditional fillers to use in epoxy castings, and later in pozzolan concrete as a "showy" color, and of course when wetted by resin, the color is heightened. I also tried it as an abrasive media to use in vibratory finishers. One property of garnet that stands out above the other two abrasives is its weight. It has a density of about 4, while silicon carbide and aluminum oxide's density is around 3. This gives it an advantage when used as a sand blasting media or a vibratory media. Vibratory finishers work fastest when the load is heaviest. Another application because of it's heaviness is as a weighting material for dolls. The density of glass beads often used in dolls is 2.5. The "feel" of the garnet will be different because it's not "slippery" as glass beads are, but this mesh size is pretty mobile.

The Wiki article gives several interesting uses and facts about garnet { https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garnet }:
"--Red garnets were the most commonly used gemstones in the Late Antique Roman world, and the Migration Period art of the "barbarian" peoples who took over the territory of the Western Roman Empire. They were especially used inlaid in gold cells in the cloisonné technique, a style often just called garnet cloisonné, found from Anglo-Saxon England, as at Sutton Hoo, to the Black Sea...
--Garnet sand is a good abrasive, and a common replacement for silica sand in sand blasting. Alluvial garnet grains which are rounder are more suitable for such blasting treatments. Mixed with very high pressure water, garnet is used to cut steel and other materials in water jets. For water jet cutting, garnet extracted from hard rock is suitable since it is more angular in form, therefore more efficient in cutting.
--Garnet paper is favored by cabinetmakers for finishing bare wood.
--Garnet sand is also used for water filtration media.
--As an abrasive, garnet can be broadly divided into two categories; blasting grade and water jet grade. The garnet, as it is mined and collected, is crushed to finer grains; all pieces which are larger than 60 mesh (250 micrometers) are normally used for sand blasting. The pieces between 60 mesh (250 micrometers) and 200 mesh (74 micrometers) are normally used for water jet cutting. The remaining garnet pieces that are finer than 200 mesh (74 micrometers) are used for glass polishing and lapping. Regardless of the application, the larger grain sizes are used for faster work and the smaller ones are used for finer finishes.
--There are different kinds of abrasive garnets which can be divided based on their origin. The largest source of abrasive garnet today is garnet-rich beach sand which is quite abundant on Indian and Australian coasts and the main producers today are Australia and India.
--This material is particularly popular due to its consistent supplies, huge quantities and clean material. The common problems with this material are the presence of ilmenite and chloride compounds. Since the material has been naturally crushed and ground on the beaches for past centuries, the material is normally available in fine sizes only. Most of the garnet at the Tuticorin beach in south India is 80 mesh, and ranges from 56 mesh to 100 mesh size.
--River garnet is particularly abundant in Australia. The river sand garnet occurs as a placer deposit.
--Rock garnet is perhaps the garnet type used for the longest period of time. This type of garnet is produced in America, China and western India. These crystals are crushed in mills and then purified by wind blowing, magnetic separation, sieving and, if required, washing. Being freshly crushed, this garnet has the sharpest edges and therefore performs far better than other kinds of garnet. Both the river and the beach garnet suffer from the tumbling effect of hundreds of thousands of years which rounds off the edges.
--Garnet has been mined in western Rajasthan in northwestern India for the past 200 years, but mainly for the gemstone grade stones. Abrasive garnet was mainly mined as a secondary product while mining for gem garnets and was used as lapping and polishing media for the glass industries. The host rock of the garnet here is garnetiferous mica schist and the total percentage of garnet is not more than 7% to 10%, which makes the material extremely costly and non-economical to extract for non-gemstone applications."

Another experimental use is in pozzolanic materials:
If you need a fine aggregate for pozzolan concrete or mortar, this is one choice. It's a different color than silica or other sands. Read on if you want more info on aggregates used for pozzolan mixes.
There are many different aggregate materials used with high performance concrete. They can be the same aggregates used for regular concrete. The countertop, decorative flooring industry uses a great variety of aggregates, some very exotic, especially when the surface is ground and polished with diamond, when exposes the internal aggregates used.
Just a few are listed in this section, differing primarily by color; white, dark, and medium.
There are other materials in our shop that could be used as aggregates. They just need to be hard and of the correct mesh size you need. If an aggregate becomes too fine, it will not act as an aggregate, but as a replacement for cement that will be of greater or lesser reactivity with the cement. Fine clays like metakaolin react chemically with the cement and alter its properties in a positive way (making a high performance concrete). Other very fine particle sized materials of lesser reactivity may actually weaken the concrete.
Aggregates that our shop carries would be classified as "sand" (either "fine" sand, about 120 to 35 mesh, or "coarse" sand with larger particles above 35 mesh). They are listed in scattered locations, so to find them just do a store search for "sand". Others are not necessarily labeled sand and would be used for their darker or lighter colors: Granular Magnetite, Fused Silica, Kyanite, Olivine, Forsterite, Ilmenite, garnet, and Crushed Glass are some examples.

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Jan 17, 2023

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