What is Glass Bead?
Want your parts to look nice and shiny? Then you should use glass bead in your cabinet. So, what is a glass bead? The technical definition of glass bead is an abrasive used in dry or wet blasting that uses its spherical shape to brighten and clean the surface of your parts.
Its Properties
Glass bead has two properties that make it extremely useful: its spherical hollow shape, and its gentle nature. It has no angles or sharp edges to etch with. Instead, it’s a hollow sphere that rolls along your parts surface. Glass bead is also one of the least aggressive abrasives, ranking at 5.5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale. Therefore, it will not damage or roughen up your part. It will, however, brighten and clean your parts.
Cleans Your parts
Glass bead is very effective at cleaning your parts. It cleans the surface by rolling along its contours removing grease and oil. This media is great to use if you work in a mechanic’s workshop or CNC machining and deal with oily parts all day.
Light Deburring
Glass bead also preps the surface. One way it does this is by removing light burrs from your parts. For deburring, you need an aggressive form of this medi. While this abrasive is not an aggressive media by any means you can remove small burrs using a small number mesh. This is great if you need to remove light burrs off of a delicate material because it will not harm the part as much as an angular media would deburring it. However, if you wish to remove heavy rusting, you due to the lack of an aggressive sharp cutting edge. Glass bead is great for light deburring with an aggressive mesh size.
Stripping of Paint
You can also remove paint with glass bead. Unlike with deburring, you need to use a fine mesh bead. This mesh size will be aggressive enough to remove the paint from your parts, but will not deburr it. This media is great if you’re stripping paint off of delicate titanium parts. To do this you will want to start farther back and then slowly move in so you don’t harm the delicate titanium. Glass bead, despite being known for its gentle nature, will remove light burrs, and paint from your parts.
Smooths the Surface
Glass bead also affects your parts surface roughness value by smoothing your part. In order to smooth your parts’ surface you will need a medium size bead. Due to its spherical shape, it will not cut contaminants off your surface to smooth it. Instead, the media rolls along the contours of your parts filling in its pores. In doing so, the part’s surface becomes smoother. An added benefit of filling the pores in is it makes your coating last longer. An example of glass bead smoothing is in this aluminum plate video. A medium glass bead will smooth your parts’ surface and make your coating last longer.
Frosts Glass
While uncommon, glass bead can frost glass. For this treatment type, you need a fine mesh glass bead. This mesh type etches the glass roughening its surface, creating a frosting effect. It will not pit the glass though, because it’s not aggressive enough. However, it is that lack of aggressiveness that causes you to have to blast the same area multiple times to get a consistent finish. So if you want frosted glass be prepared to use up a lot of time. This treatment is great for anyone who wants a window that no one can see in with. Glass bead frosts glass, making it difficult to see through.
Brightens the Surface
On the other hand, glass bead is best known for creating a bright finish on your parts. The finish occurs when it rolls along the contours of your part leaving the surface roughness value alone. Since it has no etching capabilities, you get an OEM finish that makes your parts look as good as new. For this reason, it is one of the top abrasives used in the restoration industry. Glass bead provides your parts with a shiny, reflective finish that makes them look brand new.
Mixable with Aluminum Oxide
If you are looking to create a smooth and brighter finish, then you should mix glass bead and aluminum oxide. In doing so, you create a smooth and slightly brighter finish. To do this aluminum oxide will etch off containments smoothing the surface. Then, glass bead rolls along the surface, brightening it. Keep in mind that you will get a duller finish when you mix it than when it’s used alone, because smoothing makes it duller. Despite the duller finish, you save yourself so much time by not having to blast your part twice to create this same finish. Glass bead is mixable with aluminum oxide, creating a smooth and semi-bright finish.
Won’t Damage Your Parts
Moving on from what glass bead can do for your parts. Let’s delve into its other benefits. This media won’t damage your parts because it’s not aggressive enough. At its most aggressive point, it takes off light burrs only. It cannot remove heavy rusting, or any rubber caps or sealant that is on your parts. In fact, none of our abrasives can remove sealants or warp your parts, due to the clean by flow process. In this process, the water cushions the abrasive, so it rolls on your part instead of bouncing off it. Due to this cushioning, you can blast any material you want. Glass bead, along with our other abrasives, will not damage your parts.
Lasts Long
Glass bead is long lasting when used in a wet blasting cabinet. In fact, it lasts 30 times longer in a wet blasting cabinet that it does in a sandblasting one. The reason for this is that the water cushions the abrasive. Therefore, when it hits your parts, it doesn’t break into a billion pieces. Instead, it rolls on your part and cycles back into the system to be used again. This is not only true for glass bead, but for all our abrasives due to the cushioning effect. Wet blasting cabinets cushion your abrasive, making glass bead and all other abrasives last longer.
Saves You Money
Glass bead is very cost effective. For one, it has great longevity, so you don’t have to buy it as often. When you do need to replace it, you will notice it is one of the least expensive abrasives out there. Its inexpensive cost is due to glass being a readily available material. Whereas, other abrasives, such as aluminum oxide, are harder to find, so they cost more.
You also save money because it’s gentle on your machine components. Due to its gentle nature, it takes longer for it to wear down your nozzle tip and tear a hole in your gloves. Glass bead saves you money due to its low cost, longevity, and gentleness on your cabinets parts.
Conclusion
To recap, glass bead is a round, hollow abrasive that has no sharp edges. Therefore, it cannot etch your part’s surface. However, it can clean, polish, smooth, and frost your parts. It also provides your parts with the OEM finish that it is known for. Besides the polishing capabilities, it’s also cost effective, long lasting, and unharmful to your parts. For more information on glass bead, or our other abrasives, please contact us at 828-202-5563.
