Emery paper

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Emery paper is a type of paper that can be used for sanding down hard and rough surfaces.
It can also be used for resistant technology purposes to give a smooth, shiny finish to
manufactured products and is often used in the finishing of high-end watch movements.
Similar to sandpaper, it is made by gluing small particles of the mineral emery (also called iron
spinel or hercynite) to paper.

Emery (mineral)
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Emery mine on Naxos Island
Emery is a very hard rock type used to make abrasive powder. It largely consists of the mineral
corundum (aluminium oxide), mixed with other species such as the iron-bearing spinels
hercynite and magnetite, and also rutile (titania). Industrial emery may contain a variety of other
minerals and synthetic compounds such as magnesia, mullite, and silica.
It is black or dark gray in colour, less dense than translucent-brown corundum with a specific
gravity of between 3.5 and 3.8. Because it can be a mixture of minerals, no definite Mohs
hardness can be assigned: the hardness of corundum is 9 and that of some spinel-group minerals
is near 8, but the hardness of others such as magnetite is near 6.
Crushed or naturally eroded emery (known as black sand) is used as an abrasive for example,
on an emery board, as a traction enhancer in asphalt and tarmac mixtures, or as used in
mechanical engineering as emery cloth.
The Greek island of Naxos used to be the main source of this industrially important rock type. It
has been mined on the eastern side of Naxos for well over two thousand years until recent times.
However, demand for emery has decreased with the development of sintered carbide and oxide
materials as abrasive