Emery Cloth

What Is Emery Cloth?

Emery cloth is a fabric that is covered with a range of grades of abrasive material and is used for "sanding" down to either smooth a surface, remove deep scratches, remove an oxidised layer, or form a shape or angle. In plastic pipe systems, it is most commonly used to remove any oxidised layers from older pipe which is being re-used (such as oxidising from sunlight) and keying the pipe surface before cementing.

What Is the Difference Between Emery Cloth and Sandpaper?

Emery cloth differs to sandpaper in several ways:

1. Emery cloth has the abrasive glued to a cloth rather than paper, which makes it far sturdier and less inclined to tear in use
2. Emery cloth uses a form of corundum (or corundite) as the abrasive, rather than sand
3. Emery is longer lasting than sand as a glued abrasive
4. Emery particles are of a more consistent size than sand, especially where finer grades are concerned
5. Emery should not be used on wooden surfaces as fine particles of iron and other metals can become embedded and cause staining or other damage to the wood

Emery cloth is typically graded into "grit" sizes between 8 and 120, with the grit becoming coarser as the number increases. 80 grit paper is typically used for roughing and chamfering plastic pipe.