What Can Wet Blasting Be Used For?
Are you looking to expand your usage of your wet blasting cabinet, or do you want to know what a wet blasting machine can be used for? Well, you’re in luck, because today we will be covering the applications of wet blasting. A few examples of this are in the manufacturing of both gas and diesel automobiles, as well as motorcycles, boats, and planes. CNC machined parts also benefit from wet blasting, along with tool & die, injection molds, investment castings, and many more. The reason for the wide adoption of Vapor Honing as a process is because of its fine tuning ability, which we will discuss in detail later.
Cleaning the Surface
Vapor Honing machines are great tools for cleaning your parts. For those that work in engineering and mechanics, our wet blasting process is great at removing oil and grease from your CNC parts as well as other parts, such as carburetors. It’s a common misconception that you need warm water to get these grease and oil off your part. While utilizing warm water gets them off your parts quickly; you can also remove them using room temperature water with angular media such as aluminum oxide.
While wet blasting is great at cleaning the surface of your parts, you can also get into the tight passageways of your parts as well. Therefore, wet blasting is capable of cleaning any castings, injections, and other tool and die on your parts. The wet blasting process is capable of getting into these areas without hard-packing the abrasive in these crevices because it cleans by flow. This process means that the abrasives roll along the contours of your parts and get into the hard to reach places instead of bouncing off your parts.
Prepping the Surface
The Vapor Honing process is a great way to clean your parts. This process helps deburr your parts and get rid of any rust that’s on it. The rust removal process can be done quickly using the sharp cutting edge of our angular media. Some examples of angular media are aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, and crushed glass. Out of all abrasives, aluminum oxide is one of the most aggressive, ranking at 9.2 on the Mohs hardness scale. Since it is one of the most aggressive abrasives, we highly recommend using it for rust removal over the other angular abrasives.
If you need to re-coat a part or just want your part to look like it used to, you can remove any surface coating with this process. This process can remove paint off your parts using an angular media. The aluminum oxide and silicon carbide can remove anodized parts, such as aluminum. The wet blasting process can get rid of any fire damage on your parts or antiques, thus restoring them to their original state. So if you’re in the antique restoration business, this process would be great to use so you can bring those pieces back to what they once were.
The wet blasting process also eliminates hot spots and discoloration from your parts as well. In order to do this, you will need a spherical abrasive such as ceramic bead or glass bead. These spherical abrasives won’t cut anything from the surface but it will polish it so you have the same consistent finish.
Surface Finish
Smoothing the Surface
Speaking of the finish, the wet blasting process not only cleans your parts but also polishes your parts’ surface at the same time. With wet blasting, you get two finishes. The first is a smooth satin finish. This is achieved by using glass or ceramic bead that rolls along the contours of your part, filling in the part, all while brightening it. You can also combine the smoothing and brightening effect by mixing aluminum oxide and glass bead. When you do this, you will get a nice smooth part that is dull but not as dull as it would be with only aluminum oxide.
With wet blasting, you can smooth the surface of your 3d part. The smooth finish can be done in two different ways. The first option is where the ceramic or glass bead follows the curvatures of your 3d parts evening them out. Thus creating a smooth and consistent finish. With aluminum oxide or silicon carbide you etch the bumps off the surface of your part using their sharp edge, thus smoothing it.
Typically, people try to smooth 3d parts by hand or with a rotary tool. The issue with these strategies is that they cutting straight across the surface instead of following its curvatures. In doing so, you give your 3d part an inconsistent finish. Whereas with the wet blasting process, neither abrasive type leaves behind an inconsistent finish. Instead, they naturally roll along your parts surface. Ceramic bead or glass bead follows the lines of 3d parts allowing them to attain a smooth, consistent surface finish. Whereas angular media will cut bumps off the surface, also smoothing it.
Roughening the Surface
On the other hand, you can also get a rough surface finish. To do this, you want to use an angular abrasive. Leaving your part rigid gives it great bonding abilities for applying coating such as paint. Basically, the rougher your surface is, the more adhesive it is to paint. So if you are looking to apply coating, make sure your part is well etched.
While some roughen the surface for coating, you can also create a rigid surface by etching a design into glass. To create a design, you will need an angular media, such as aluminum oxide, to etch the surface of your part. Depending on what task you wish to fulfill, you can smooth or roughen your parts surface with wet blasting.
Automation
Automated wet blasting, just like manual wet blasting, cleans, preps, and finishes your parts. However, there are some tasks that automation allows you to do more efficiently. One scenario where automated wet blasting is more efficient than manual wet blasting is when cleaning production pieces. With manual wet blasting, you run the risk of missing spots and not being efficient. An automated wet blasting machine, can be programmed to avoid missing these areas when cleaning your part.
Automated wet blasting also has a repeatability factor to it. Thus, you can program the machine to know how to blast a particular part. This saves you time of having to blast the same parts over and over again. With the time saved you can work on other projects and make more money. Automation also makes you money because you don’t have to pay someone to blast your parts for you. The robot will do it without compensation and benefits. Automated wet blasting completes the same processes as wet blasting, but eliminates some of the human mistakes that make manual blasting less efficient, while also giving you more money.
Conclusion
To recap, wet blasting preps and finish your parts. The prepping process removes unwanted contaminants from your parts and takes off any surface coating. Whereas, the finishing process creates either a smooth satin finish or dull finish. With wet blasting, you also have the option of going automated and making your process more precise. For more information on what wet blasting can do for your parts, please contact us at 828-202-5563.
