Plastic media is primarily used in vibratory finishing applications to smooth surface roughness, Break edge radius, reduce sharpness, blend tooling paths, polish, deburr, and many other useful finishing applications. Plastic vibratory media can also be referred to as stones or chips, however, the terminology refers to pre-formed of random shape pieces of ceramic with different abrasive characteristics.
Abrasive characteristics vary as different compositions are engineered to produce various luster and roughness results. Plastic densities are altered to accommodate process pressures as well as part material considerations. Vibratory media can be classified as "no cut", "low cut", "medium cut" , fast cut", "very fast cut", and "ultra fast cut". Each classification of media will produce a different final finish from polished to coarse per the respective "cut" rate.