Using Abrasive Blasting Before Surface Coating? Know About Its Varied Methods and Benefits

Wondering what abrasive blasting is used for? Well, it is a type of blasting that is widely used across the cleaning industry for surface cleaning, finishing and preparation of a range of materials. Abrasive blasting uses various materials to strip imperfections, rust, paint and other contaminants from a surface. In fact, this step is hard to overlook in surface coating preparation, because it cleans an underlying substrate (if present) and creates a surface to hold a protective coating.

Apart from that, blasting not only takes the place of labour-intensive cleaning methods like wire brushing or sanding but also speeds up the surface preparation process by upto 75%.

Abrasive Blasting Methods include:

1. Bead Blasting: This method uses glass beads to remove surface deposits and is effective in cleaning fungus, paint and calcium deposits.
2. Bristle Blasting: A high carbon rotary steel brush method is used to prepare a surface and make it rough.
3. Wet Abrasive Blasting: This method removes grease, dust and hazardous materials with the help of cold or hot water blasting.
4. Micro Abrasive Blasting: This dry blasting method uses a small jet that points a fine stream of abrasive media to a targeted area. It is suitable for detailed work.
5. Hydro Blasting: This method removes paint, debris build-up and chemicals by using high-pressure water blasting.
6. Dry Ice Blasting: Removes as well as decontaminates items from a surface with the air and dry ice blasting.
7. Automated Blasting: An automated blasting procedure is done within a chamber.
8. Wheel Blasting: To shoot abrasives against a surface without the help of a propellant, centrifugal force is applied on airless blasting method.

Benefits of Abrasive Blasting for Surface Coating Preparation

Inexpensive Yet Effective: Abrasive Blasting is not only efficient for surface preparation but also cost-effective. In fact, many of its types are reusables and offer additional financial advantages because it competently cleans surfaces better and faster than traditional techniques. Moreover, it is effective in removing rust from metal surfaces.

Eco-Friendliness: At least abrasive blasting is far more environment friendly than chemical cleaning. The abrasive media themselves are natural and use eco-friendly materials that do not release greenhouse gases during the entire blasting process.

Surface profiling: You can control the adhesion profile of a surface by using different particle sizes of the blasting medium, that are required for the surface preparation process. In fact, the surface profiling is dependent on the customer application requirements for the material. However, chemical stripping, on the other hand, does not allow any control over the final surface profile.

Besides, temperature and humidity play a critical role in the effectiveness of coating adhesion. However, during the process of coating surface preparation, it’s important to keep the temperature and relative humidity level low via temporary climate control solutions. The reason being, it eliminates excess moisture that could hinder the protective coating’s application and drying.

The importance of temperature and humidity cannot be just overlooked as it is absolute important when preparing metal surfaces. The bare metal’s exposure to the surroundings makes it prone to corrosion.

So, if you need a reliable abrasive for your blasting application, wait no further and contact a leading company specialised in providing the best abrasive blasting in Sydney.