The Garnet Specification and Industry
Only iron garnet, almandine and to a lesser extent, glosularite are used in the manufacture of abrasive like coated garnet paper and cloth and discs glued with sodium silicate. The common bonding materials used for the manufacture of discs are magnesium oxide and magnesium chloride. Garnet is crushed, sieved and graded into various sizes and thus coated abrasives of various fineness are prepared. Garnet abrasives are used mostly for wood polishing. Finer grains of micron sizes are used as tumbling chemicals, grits for optical glass polishing and also ceramics and glasses. In modern practice, broken garnet pieces are preheated to a temperature varying from 700° to 1000°C before crushing to various grain sizes. It is reported that the toughness, fracture and colour of the garnet is improved on heating and quenching.
The Garnet uese

Garnet is ground to a variety of sizes to be used as an abrasive. Garnet sandpaper was the original application of this mineral. It is also used to make a number of similar products, including sanding belts, discs, and strips. Today, the vast majority of garnet is used as an abrasive blasting material, for water filtration, in a process called water jet cutting, and to make abrasive powders. A number of natural and synthetic materials could be used in place of garnet for abrasive purposes. The natural materials include the minerals staurolite, quartz, diamond and corundum. The synthetic materials include fused aluminum oxide and silicon carbide.