Wet Blasting – Overview and Applications

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Precision Finishing Inc.

Wet blasting uses water and abrasive medium accelerated from a nozzle with compressed air. The water buffers and lubricates the particles on impact which allows for very fine finishes to be produced without damage to the component.

Wet Blasting - Before and After

Wet Blasting – Before and After

In addition, biodegradable cleaning compounds can be added to the water to provide the ability to clean and blast parts simultaneously.

Applications:

•Mold Cleaning
•Rebuilding or re-manufacturing of parts
•Decontamination (Nuclear industry)

Contact us to see whether your application is suited for wet blasting – 1-800-243-2537

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New Blast Room Added To Facility

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Precision Finishing Inc.

Recently Precision Finishing Inc. has added a 10’ wide x 20’ long and 10’ high blast room to their ISO 9000 compliant blasting facility. Precision Finishing Inc. is recognized for their quality blasting of industrial parts and this room now enables them to extend their quality blasting to large fabrications.  This size of room will enable us to efficiently handle a wide variety of part sizes.  The uniqueness of this installation is we will be able to efficiently change from glass bead to aluminum oxide to plastic media without contamination.  As a result, no matter what the customers finish requirement is we will be able to accommodate them.

Capability overview:
•    Provide uniform finishes on Stainless Steel Fabrications with Glass Beads
•    Surface preparations for painting of Steel Fabrications using Aluminum Oxide
•    Removal of paint with plastic media without impinging the surface
•    Simple removal of rust or weld scale

In addition, the design of the new facility features a continuous high efficiency centrifugal reclaim which guarantees uniform media sizing which is so critical in providing the finish required for paint adhesion and cosmetic blast requirements. This good abrasive is then returned to the operator and to the part.
The blasting operators have over twenty years of blasting and finishing service experience that ensure the ISO 9000 level of quality into the blast room service. The facility also features crane and forklift capability along with material handling with no weight limitations. If the component can fit into a 10 x 20 room with a 10ft high ceiling, the blast system will accommodate it.

Perfect for the following industries:
•    Railroad – components, couplings, wheel assemblies
•    Stainless Steel Pharmaceutical Fabrications
•    Medical Industry – Non reflective surfaces
•    Energy industry –  Turbines, stators
•    Transportation – automotive, locomotive

Precision Finishing Inc. is able to provide guidance and accurate estimates to meet part specifications. For large or extremely large parts and components, the process starts with an evaluation and consultation.  For most applications it is as easy as emailing a print of the part to our customer service department and from that a quote is formulated.

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Why Is Chemistry Necessary In Vibratory Finishing?

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

The first step of the chemistry process is that you look at the type of metal that the parts are composed of. This leads to determining what will happen in the vibratory process. A main question to ask is “what type of coolant or oils were used in the manufacturing of the part?” The coolants and oils must be cleaned off first, using an alkalinity based cleaner.
The chemistry prevents the media from becoming contaminated while keeping the media clean and sharp during the process. In addition, the chemistry helps suspend the soils created during the process which prevents them from being deposited on the parts. This also enables the media to do the grinding and polishing while preventing it from becoming glazed. The final result is cleaner parts.


Chemtrol chemistry will provide inhibitation for steel parts so they don’t rust in the finishing process. This is also used as a post-treatment as a rust inhibitor for certain steel parts. For non-ferrous parts or parts that require a bright polished finish, chemistry helps with the polishing and burnishing process of the part.
All Chemtrol chemistry is biodegradable and is introduced in a flow-through system, at approximately two ounces per gallon of water.  Also, the chemistry can be introduced in closed loop vibratory system where water and effluent go through the finishing process into a recycling system, and then back into the process again.
Precision Finishing Inc. is the manufacturer of the chemistry for both flow-through and closed loop systems and is equipped with in-house lab that develops chemistry for the application. The lab has formulated over 100 standard chemistries and can develop new chemistries if needed. All parts are tested and run through the lab with complete reporting.

Posted in Accelerated Finishing, Chemically Accelerated Surface Finishing, Finishing Compound Formulations, Finishing Process, Vibratory Finishing | Leave a comment

Accelerated Finishing In The Racing Industry

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

Chemtrol is used for chemically accelerated surface finishing (ASF) in a vibratory machine. The process creates a soft film on the surface of the part whereby non-abrasive media wipes the surface clean to re-expose the surface to the chemistry again. This continual process of re-exposing the part surface improves and refines the surface without a lot of metal removal.

The accelerated finishing process is able to take race components and achieve a chrome-like, smooth surface finish without a tolerance change.
Advantages of accelerated finishing (ASF):
•    Reduces stress on the surface of the part which dramatically increases fatigue life
•    Reduces friction for a longer part life, and the oil temperature is reduced within the vehicle
•    Reduce wear on the components with no break-in requirements for the parts
•    Oil shedding – all components have a mirror like finish and oil sheds off of the part

Accelerated finishing has opened the door to perform more vibratory finishing because the shorter time cycles from the process result in better finishes with less metal removal which creates a smooth surfaces without a tolerance change.


Typical racing industry parts that use accelerated finishing:
•    Ring and pinion
•    Gear sets
•    Transmission gears
•    Crankshafts
•    Connecting rods
•    Valve springs
•    Cam shafts,
•    Motor cycles – gear sets and shafts

Since Chemtrol ASF is manufactured by Precision Finishing and is the exclusive chemistry for the process customers can send parts to the lab for experimentation and testing. A complete test report is provided. Precision Finishing can do finishing in-house for you or we can provide a turn-key process including the equipment in your facility.

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Flocculation treatment of vibratory water

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

Flocculation is a waste water treatment process that uses a clay polymer to coagulate the solids in the vibratory waste water stream.  This coagulation generates larger particles of the contaminants and metals which then can be filtered out of the waste stream.  This is typically accomplished via a paper bed filer or a centrifuge.  Once this floc is removed from the waste stream the filtered water can be sent to sewer or back to the vibratory process for reuse.

Chemical Flocculation System

The filtered out material is disposed of as a residual waste unless your waste stream contains high levels of metal such as copper or chrome.  In this instance your solid waste could be characterized as a hazardous material and thus disposed as such.  We have found in some cases that by adding the clay polymer to a heavy metal waste stream it has actually enabled the solid waste to pass through as a non hazardous waste.

Flocculation treatment has a lower capital expense to get started but its continuous cost of operation due to the addition of polymers and slug generation is much higher than other means of mechanical separation.  The process is available in a manual or automated system depending on your preference.

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What Is Reclaim And Why Is It Useful?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

What is a reclaimer?

Simply stated a media reclaimer is a unit or system designed to automatically separate dust and debris from good, reusable blast media.

Why is reclaim useful?

A reclaim system will greatly improve productivity. A properly adjusted reclaimer,  continuously removes dust (& broken particles & fines) from good media then automatically returns good media to a hopper for re-use.  When dust is emptied from dust collector an equivalent amount of new media is added to the blast system and a refreshed, good media operating mix is created.

(Blast cabinet with reclaim system)

By returning only good media:

1)  The finish produced by the blast process remains consistent and repeatable from piece to piece because it is removing the broken, fine particals.

2)  Speed of the blast process is maintained at optimum rate

(Dust, broken particles & fines don’t have the cleaning or impact value of good media – so the operation slows down as the content of fines increases.

3)  Cost of the media usage is reduced.

(Keeping media clean results in maximum, effective media life.)

4A)  Maintenance and operator labor costs are reduced.

(Instead of using labor time to change out all the media – as systems without reclaimers require – regular, small additions of good media prevents large blocks of time dedicated to total media change-outs.) Eliminates total change-out of media

4B)  Properly designed media reclaimers include a trash screen that catches over-sized debris (such as paint chips, pieces of paper, chunks of rust or who knows what) before that material can block a metering valve or clog a nozzle.   This is a great labor saving and time saving feature.

Through proper adjustments the reclaim system will provide a better part finish and make media handling more efficient.

Judy Sheasly
Checker Industries

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What Is Ball Burnishing?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

A bright, highly reflective surface can be achieved in a vibratory process commonly referred to as ball burnishing.   This specialized process combines the weight and brightness of steel media with compounds designed to produce a specific color and luster in the work piece(s).   It’s major function is to make parts look bright or “burnished”.

In ball burnishing heavy, dense steel media impacts the work piece(s) peening over the peaks

of the surface profile creating a larger area in one plane to reflect light.  This is

perceived visually as shine.   There is no abrasive in the steel media so rough edges, surfaces and burrs are simply rolled or pounded over.  An added benefit to ball burnishing is that the weight of the media and process actually work hardens the surface thereby strengthening the part.

Achieving a high degree of reflectivity, brightness, depth and clarity of finish is sometimes referred to as producing a “mirror” finish.  The quality of an image reflected in the surface of a ball burnished part doesn’t match the sharpness and color of an image reflected by an actual mirror but it does produce a highly reflective part.

So while vibratory finishing doesn’t produce a surface that reflects a distortion free image it can produce bright, shiny, attractive parts with a surface that feels very smooth to the touch.

Judy Sheasley
Checker Industries

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Alternatives To Using Black Beauty

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

A job shop that also has blasting capabilities had been using Black Beauty in one of their blast rooms. Black Beauty is a waste by-product from burning coal, commonly referred to as “coal slag”. The Black Beauty was breaking up creating dust and reducing visibility. In addition it prevented them from reclaiming the media for re-use.  As a result, they felt that they were purchasing excessive quantities of the Black Beauty to maintain production requirements.

We gave them information on “GARNET” which is a cost effective replacement for Black Beauty and other products like Starblast. The customer purchased a quantity of the Garnet for test and evaluation. They were very pleased to discover that visibility was greatly improved. The increase in visibility resulted in improving their blast times, and thus productivity. Also, the less fracturing enabled them to recover the Garnet for re-use.

The cost of the Garnet is higher than these other abrasives, but they are experiencing a significant cost savings because they can buy much less Garnet and get more out of it through re-use.  Another major cost savings resulted from increased productivity by eliminating the dust and visibility issues.

Like many things, you basically get what you pay for. This shop has recognized they can’t afford not to move away from black beauty and have long term plans to make Garnet the only media they will use for all of their blasting needs in their blast cabinets and blast rooms.   

Bob Stansbury
Sales

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The Benefits Of Sample Processing

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Precision Finishing Inc.

A metals fabricator recently purchased a vibratory bowl from Precision Finishing so that they can tumble parts in-house. This was a new process for them, and they realized that they lacked the expertise to run this efficiently.
     

Precision Finishing Lab For Sample Processing

The fabricator sent us a representative quantity of a part to tumble in Precision Finishing’s lab so that we could develop a process for them to use with their machine. A process was developed for the part that included:

  • The selection and application of the shape, size and composition of media
  • The most effective CHEMTROL product to use

We assisted the customer in implementing the accepted process in their machine. They were very pleased with the results and have decided to send additional parts to us for process development.  Their goal is when they work down existing inventory they want to tumble finish all of their parts and have Precision Finishing assist them in developing the most cost effective process for these parts. The purchase of an additional bowl has now become a probability.

The main benefit of sample processing is that Precision Finishing Inc. will, at no charge, develop a tumbling process for a customer, specific to the part they sent to us. Then, the customer can either have us run production for them—or they can implement the process in their machine.       

Bob Stansbury
Sales

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