How To Maintain an Efficient Blast Media Work Mix

If you are reclaiming and reusing your blast media, then you need to maintain a healthy blast media work mix. Having too coarse or too fine of a work mix can cause inconsistent or damaged surface finishes. The best way to ensure a consistent and quality surface finish is through maintaining a healthy blast media work mix.

Signs of A Bad Work Mix

Process is moving slowly.

A proper work mix contains a mixture of various sized abrasives.  This distribution of sizes provides for maximum cleaning in the shortest amount of time.

There is a lot of dust in your process.

The fine dust particles are not being pulled out by the reclaimer/dust collector properly.

Inconsistent surface finish.

Whether the part is needing a smooth finish or being prepped for coating, having an even surface is important. If your blasting is producing an inconsistent finish, you should check your media mix by screening.

Benefits of Using A Healthy Blast Media Mix

There are many benefits to utilizing a blend of sizes in your blasting operation. Some of those benefits include:

• Reduce waste of your blast media by ensuring it is working as efficiently as possible, ultimately saving you money.
• Produce high quality finishes on a consistent basis.
• Increase productivity through a quicker blasting operation. An efficient work mix will achieve the desired finish faster than an inconsistent mix.

How To Achieve & Maintain An Efficient Work Mix

Monitor your work mix through regular screening

There are a lot of factors that cause a media to break down quickly or slowly such as the type of abrasive used, the starting particle size and PSI used while blasting. Since there can be many factors that affect the rate of media breakdown, it is a good idea to regularly screen your media so you can tell where your system stands. This is turn will help you make adjustments that will provide a consistent quality finish.

If you don’t have screening capabilities, we can help at our lab at Midvale Industries.

Regularly add new media to the mix

Frequently adding small media additions will keep larger particles fed into the system to replace the spent media that is being removed. The amount of blasting you do per day will help determine how frequently you should add new media.

Adding a large amount of new media at the end of the current media cycle will throw off your work mix. This creates an inconsistent mix and results.

Check your dust collector

If you find usable media in the dust collector, make adjustments to the reclaimer and/or dust collector that will dampen the system and stop pulling good media through.

Is there dust in your work mix?

Then it’s time to adjust the reclaim/dust collector system the opposite way and pull spent media and other dusts out of the system.

We can help tune system for optimal performance!

Whether you are new to blasting or have been around for a little while, it’s helpful to the names of the parts of your blast helmet. This will help you when ordering new parts for your helmet and also to understand better what the various components do. To the left is a sample breakdown of an Apollo 600 Blast Helmet (a best seller in the blasting industry). See pdf links below to see labeled parts breakdown of the Apollo 600 blast hood HP and LP models.

Below is also a video animation of the major components of the Apollo 600 helmet, these components are very similar to what are found in other major blast hood manufacturers including Bullard hoods and Nova hoods. Please also see the video overviews for the Bullard GenVX helmet and the Nova 3 Helmet. Each helmet has its pros and cons, factors to consider are helmet weight, comfort, price, cost of lenses and parts, and NIOSH approval.

Apollo 600 HP Helmet (Designed for use with compressed air)
Apollo 600 LP Helmet (Designed for use an ambient air pump)

Bullard GenVX Video

Nova 3 Blast Helmet Video

Clemco Apollo 600 Video

Wet Blasting vs Dry Blasting

When it comes to the best blasting system for the job there are several variables to consider, including suction vs pressure blast systems, media type, budget, desired surface finish, etc. 

So let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of Dry Blasting vs Wet Blasting in a blast cabinet for an industrial environment. This will be a good place to start the discussion, knowing that detailed testing is available to fully determine specifics for an application.

Should You Choose Wet Blasting or Dry Blasting?

A lot depends on the application and your budget.

Dry blasting has been used for decades and for as many different industrial applications as you can think of.  When it comes to wet blasting, below are some of the applications where this process excels.

• Medical Parts – especially when ferrous contamination and media embedment are concerns
• Aerospace – composite etching (provides a gentle even finish) and bonding (can increase bond strength up to 200x when compared to traditional methods)
• Automotive – ideal when oily, greasy, or carbon stained parts need to be cleaned and finished
• Firearms – Provides an even finish and can be used to get into hard to reach places

7 Things You Should Be Doing When Sandblasting

Every project requires a it’s own blasting process, equipment and media selection, but here are a few general sandblasting tips to help guide you in the process.

1.)  Never Blast With Silica Sand

Besides new stricter laws addressing Silica PEL Limits, crystaline silica leads to a deadly disease known as silicosis.  Never use  silica sand (also known river sand and sugar sand) for abrasive blasting.  Consider using other low cost alternatives such as Black Beauty Coal Slag, Green Diamond Sand, Starblast

3.) Choosing A Blasting Abrasive

Selecting your blast media is an important part of the overall process. You need to ensure that the media is safe to use on your substrate, whether or not you can reclaim and recycle, and the desired outcome. Ask your media supplier for an estimate on blast bycles for the media you think will fit best. (See Below)

4.) Make Sure You Are Using The Right Sized Compressor For Your Nozzle

7.)  Cheap Abrasives May Not Be That Cheap

There are a number of factors that determine the “true cost” of an abrasive: The dollar amount per pound, the number of cycles, and your reclaim system.

As mentioned in tip number 3 reusability is important, blast media that initially seems very expensive such as steel shot/grit (reusability 200+ cycles) versus a cheaper abrasive such as coal slag (reusability 1 – 3 cycles).  While steel media is superior in reusability it is not cheaper if you cannot reclaim it effectively (see tip #2).