Coated abrasives with rapidly curable adhesives and controllable

Abstract

Previous coated abrasives with adhesives suited to rapid, UV light initiated cure often had intractable curl problems. Therefore, such coated abrasives have been unsuited to precision finishing of workpieces with strict flatness or other curvature requirements, such as read-write heads for magnetic recorders or computer memories. This invention provides coated abrasives, having adhesives with cure initiated by UV light, which are suited to curvature control by the methods used conventionally for magnetic recording media. The preferred adhesive formulations include reaction products of 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate with polyol polyester oligomers capped with isocyanate end groups, alkoxylated diacrylated monomers, and N-vinyl pyrrolidone and other monomers with only one polymerizable unsaturated double bond per molecule, and sometimes also include nonpolymerizable thermoplastic polymers. The adhesives, with abrasives grain dispersed therein, are milled in special mills combining the actions of small milling media with large scale high speed agitation to reduce their viscosity to a workable level for gravure roll coating. The dispersion is then coated on plastic film backings and cured with UV lamps having a high spectral output in the near UV, the backing being kept cool during cure by contact with a cooled metal roll. The warm coated abrasive thus formed is finally shaped into accurately flat or other controlled curvature.