Blasting
Clean finished parts, prepare parts for secondary processing, or add greater fatigue strength.
Prepare Your Parts for Whatever Comes Next
Typically, when parts are blasted following heat treatment, it’s done for the purpose of cleaning the part, in preparation either for painting or coating or to simply to remove heat treatment scale that may have built up on the part during heat treating. The next step in your parts’ process and their application will indicate which type of blasting is ideal.
Types of Blasting
The two main types of blasting used for cleaning parts are glass bead blasting and steel shot blasting. Shot peening is not used for cleaning parts, but for improving their mechanical properties.
Glass Bead Blasting
Glass bead blasting uses the same type of beads that are added to highway paint to make it reflective, but during this process, they’re useful because they clean the surface of a material without mechanically removing any of the material itself. What’s left is a flat, matte-like finish. It’s a process that’s often used in the tool and die industry for the removal of heat treatment scale and to clean parts destined for further operations like thread rolling or plating.
Shot Peening
Another finishing process that’s not done for the purpose of cleaning a part, though, is known as shot peening. Shot peening entails blasting the part’s metal surface with steel shot to produce a compressive residual stress layer on a part, which will allow the material to withstand greater loads before fatigue becomes an issue. Essentially, this procedure entails intentionally inducing stress to a part with the intention of hardening it and increasing its resistance to application tensile stress (in other words, enhancing its fatigue life).
Steel Shot Blasting
Steel shot blasting, as its name suggests, uses steel shot to clean a part. As with glass bead blasting, steel shot blasting does not mechanically remove any part of the original material, but removes heat treating scale or other debris that may be left on the surface of a part. Steel shot blasting is similar to shot peening, but the type of steel shot and control of the media is not as rigid as with shot peening, so it does not induce the same amount of stress.
Shot blasting is typically used in applications where materials aren’t highly machined, and instead remain rough, such as in casting or forging, but still need to be cleaned of oxides, heat treatment scale and other debris.
Prepare Your Parts for Whatever Comes Next
Typically, when parts are blasted following heat treatment, it’s done for the purpose of cleaning the part, in preparation either for painting or coating or to simply to remove heat treatment scale that may have built up on the part during heat treating. The next step in your parts’ process and their application will indicate which type of blasting is ideal.
Blasting Applications
- Tooling & dies
- Metal castings
- Automotive parts such as bell housings and stabilizing bars
- Railroad fastening systems
Blasting FAQs
Can you blast really large or really heavy parts?
We can handle parts that fit in our tumble blasters, which have a maximum gross capacity of about 12 cubic feet. This works well for the high volumes of small to medium parts.
What is blasting, and why is it needed?
Blasting is a cleaning process that removes scale, oxidation, and discoloration from parts after heat treatment. When steel parts are heated, they naturally develop surface oxidation or scale. If you’re planning to apply a coating like zinc plating or phosphating, or if you simply want clean-looking parts, this oxidation needs to be removed. Blasting uses media—either steel shot or ceramic particles—propelled at high velocity to mechanically clean the part surfaces.
What's the difference between shot blasting and shot peening?
This is a common confusion because the terms sound similar. Shot blasting (or shot cleaning) is purely a cleaning operation—its purpose is to remove oxidation, scale, and discoloration from the surface. Shot peening is a completely different process that intentionally puts small dimples in the surface to create beneficial compressive stresses that improve fatigue life and reduce cracking. Shot peening is a mechanical surface treatment with specific engineering purposes. We offer shot blasting for cleaning.
What's the difference between steel shot and ceramic media?
Steel shot is more aggressive and effective at removing heavy scale and discoloration, but it can impart surface roughness on softer materials. Ceramic media is less aggressive, produces a smoother surface finish, and is gentler on parts, but it won’t remove as heavy of oxidation or scale as steel shot.Â
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