Abrasive Blast Systems

Abrasive blast systems are used for cleaning, surface preparation, and light deburring. Blasting is not the best if you are looking for heavy duty deburring equipment but in areas where you just need a little work done it can be done while you do your surface preparation.


The most common type of blasting system is sandblasting. Technically sandblasting uses sand (of course) but the term sandblasting is also used as a more general term for all abrasive blasting. Sand is a good choice for cleaning, paint removal, and removing scale from a surface. One of the gentle abrasives it will not do a lot for smoothing or roughing a surface but the surfaces will be protected while being prepared. Since sand is such an easy to come by media it is one of the cheaper ways to strip or clean a surface.

An uncommon gentle abrasive is corn cob media. Corn cobs are biodegradable and come in a variety of sizes. It is frequently used for the wood of log cabins. Corn cob is of course the tough woody center of an ear of corn; the cob can be broken down to media of a variety of grades and is tough enough to be reused. Because cob media is organic the cleanup is of a non hazardous method and if some of it is left behind it will not be a big deal.

One of the most abrasive of blasting media is steel. Steel media is generally used for roughing a surface to ensure proper adhesion for whatever type of finish that is being put on the surface. Steel media is very durable and can be reused many times in the blasting process (or tumbling or vibratory deburring) before having to be replaced.

Enclosed blasting systems aka blasting cabinets are used for smaller more manageable parts that need cleaning. Using an enclosed blasting system will keep the dust down and the surrounding area clean and safe.