Polishing Cloth: A Reference Manual

Polishing is the process or achieving the smoothest surface or best possible planeness by removing any damage remaining from grinding steps. The ultimate goal is to produce scratch and deformation free samples that can satisfy testing and clients’ needs. Polishing cloths of various materials will help you achieve this goal.

Polishing cloths vary on two important dimensions.  You need to consider the nap, or the height of the fiber, and the stiffness or resiliency of the fiber. For most applications, polishing cloths are used in conjunction with diamond suspensions, diamond pastes, and other powders and liquids of varying grain sizes. Determining the correct combination of the polishing cloths, suspensions, pastes, powders, and liquids can be a complex task which requires a knowledge of your specific application and the different products on the market.

In addition to using polishing cloths for cleaning and polishing to final pieces, polishing cloths are also used to prep a hardness test specimen. Prepping a specimen for accurate hardness testing requires the metallurgicst or quality manager to completely eliminate previous damage from cutting or abrasive grinding. This step ensures accurate measurements during the hardness testing phase.

As an example, take the Vickers hardness test which has a very shallow penetration of the metal. Therefore, you need a microscope to see the indication and finalize the results. Without a well-polished sample, you will not get a good reading during the microscope inspection.

We are a full-service provider of polishing cloths, diamond pastes and suspensions, alumina slurries, and every other type of polishing compound needed for prepping specimens of different metals, ductility, and hardness. The selection task can be daunting for many of our clients. To assist we have compiled a reference manual that can be downloaded below.

Polishing Cloth Guide

Metallurgical Supply Company has been in business for over 30 years supplying polishing cloths for many industries such as oil and gas, aerospace, automotive, heavy manufacturing, universities, and quality testing labs.

If you need anything that is not listed on our website, contact us and we will custom source it for you. We return quote requests within 24 hours or less!

Call 713-827-0700 or email sales@metsuco.com for inquires into our polishing cloths or other metallurgical products!