How Sandpaper is Made

I recently was fortunate to be able to take a tour of the Ali Industries abrasives factory in Fairborn, Ohio, where they manufacture their Gator Finishing line of sandpaper products. As a part of my tour, I was able to learn all of the steps that Ali uses to make everything from basic garnet sandpaper for hand sanding, to random orbit sanding disks, sanding belts for belt sanders and more. Ironically, most of these abrasive products are manufactured using the same (or very similar processes).

The first step to making any sandpaper product is to print the backer on the back of the paper. On sheets of sandpaper, this is where the grit and type of paper is noted. As can be seen in the image above, this is done on very large rolls of paper (roughly four-feet wide), even though the printing may eventually be covered by a backing such as a hook-and-loop attachment for power sanders.

An interesting side note: In 1994, Ali Industries began building a huge sandpaper manufacturing machine (that they affectionately call "The Maker"). Printing the backing is the initial step performed by The Maker. The first paper that came off of this manufacturing line was a batch of 320-grit garnet sandpaper in 1997. A number of the upcoming steps will show parts of The Maker.