What is Ceramic Bead?
Want an impactful abrasive that is round? Then use ceramic bead in your wet blasting system. So, what is ceramic bead? It is a solid sphere abrasive made from pure zirconium that is used in dry or wet blasting. This blog will explain why you should use ceramic bead in your wet blasting cabinet.
Its Properties
Ceramic bead’s solid spherical shape allows you to fulfill various tasks. Since it is fairly dense, it has a greater impact on your parts than the hollow spherical glass bead.
As for its aggressive nature, it really depends on the mesh size. Ceramic bead is a solid spherical abrasive that sometimes is aggressive. When looking at this abrasive in a dry blasting cabinet, it’s considered more aggressive. Unlike in a wet blasting cabinet, where water cushions the abrasive, leading to a gentler impact on your parts.
Removes corrosion
Ceramic bead removes corrosion and other contaminants from your parts. It removes rust using a fine mesh ceramic bead. While these beads are aggressive enough to remove light burrs, it cannot remove heavy rusting due to a lack of sharp edges. Instead, it removes rust by rolling along the parts fibers and catching the contaminants. A fine mesh ceramic bead rolls along your parts and catches contaminants removing rust.
Smoothing Surfaces
Ceramic bead is powerful enough that it also smooths the surface of your parts. It does this by rolling along the fibers of your parts and evening them out. In the performance industry, wet blasting is preferred for smoothing intake and exhaust manifolds. The clean by flow nature creates smooth ports and removes any tool lines or casting imperfections on the part. Removing carbon buildup inside the exhaust manifold is also easy, with vapor honing, as it flows through the part effortlessly. There is also no fear of damaging your part with wet blasting, as it will not impregnate the metal. This means that important sealing surfaces, like those present on the manifolds, will be unaffected. Therefore, residual abrasive amounts left in the part are much lower, as it flows with the water, rather than hard packing.
While it can also roughen the surface, it will not damage the topography of a part. Even at its most aggressive point, it cannot roughen the surface enough for paint adhesion. With ceramic bead, you usually get a smooth finish on your parts, not a rough one.
Polishing
Ceramic bead also provides your part with a dull but bright finish. Compared to glass bead, ceramic bead has a duller polish. The difference in polish is caused by the coarseness of your abrasive. As a rule of thumb, the coarser the abrasive the shiner the part, whereas the finer the abrasive the more satin like it is. Ceramic bead is a coarser abrasive than glass bead, so the polish is duller. For example, if you were to blast both media at the same mesh size, ceramic bead would have a duller looking finish. Despite the duller finish, it is very popular with people who work with pistons. Unlike glass bead, ceramic bead will brighten your part and get more of the contaminants off your pistons, making it look nice, as well as function properly. This abrasive creates a shiny, matte finish on your parts.
Wear Resistance
This abrasive is also very wear resistant. It lasts 30 times longer than glass bead. Recall that ceramic bead is solid, whereas glass bead is hollow. This solidity allows the bead to wear down slower because there are more layers to go through. Whereas, glass bead has one layer of material. Thus, glass bead will need to be replaced sooner. This wear resistance makes it very popular in the engineering community. Engineers want an abrasive that will have the same consistent finish and surface roughness value for their hundreds or thousands of identical parts. If you were to use multiple batches, then you would not get the same consistent finish for all your parts. So, getting to use the same batch of abrasive over and over again allows them to have the same finish and surface roughness value on all the identical parts.
Besides its solidity giving it wear resistance, all abrasives last longer in a wet blasting system because water cushions the abrasive. Without water, the abrasive would slam into your parts and break into a billion pieces. Since we use water, it rolls along the contours of your part, allowing you to use it multiple times. Ceramic bead has great wear resistance due to the cushioning of the abrasive and the solidity of the sphere.
Conclusion
To recap, ceramic bead gives your parts a smooth and matte finish because it is coarser than glass bead. This coarseness also allows you to remove corrosion with this media. It is also wear resistant because of how the water cushions the abrasive and its solid spherical shape. For more information on what ceramic bead can do for your parts, please contact us at 828-202-5563.
