3 Reasons to Avoid Cheap Blasting Media

Cheap blasting media seems like a great way to lower abrasive blasting costs. Unfortunately, it’s actually going to increase expenses over time due to low abrasive media recycling rates and increased machine maintenance. Let’s explore three challenges of inexpensive abrasives. 

Cheap Blasting Media Hardness

Blasting cabinets are like belt sanders, they are constantly recycling the same abrasive over and over. Our blasting cabinets are built to recycle the abrasives, separating and collecting the dust removed from the part from the reusable abrasive. Over time the abrasives get smaller and smaller as they recycle 30 to 100 times depending on the abrasive hardness and the part hardness. 

Blasting cabinets use compressed air to create abrasive speed and increase machine output. Cheap blasting media are soft, on a Mohs mineral hardness scale. Soft abrasives will quickly wear out, and their fragments will fill the dust collector and ultimately need to be replaced. They also explode at much lower blasting pressures.

Inexpensive Blasting Media Shapes

Cheap abrasives are typically an undesirable shape. Why is shape important? Two types of blasting media that are the same hardness on Mohs Scale can react very differently upon impact based on their shape. 

For example, slags and glass beads are both about 6 on the Mohs scale. Glass beads have a much higher impact velocity, meaning they can impact without breaking at a greater speed, than slag. This is because beads are round and spheres are the among the strongest shapes. Slag, by comparison, is shaped like a snowflake and will break and explode at a low impact pressure. 

Cheap Blasting Media’s Impact on Machine Maintenance  

Cheap abrasive media, like slag, is considered a one-time use abrasive because it breaks and explodes on impact when the operator turn up the pressure. Unfortunately, it quickly plugs any dust collector, an important part of any blasting cabinet creating the negative cabinet pressure required by OSHA and APCD Rules. The result is a mess, often caused by misunderstanding and misuse, no fault of the equipment.

Real World Example: Almost all blasting cabinets, 5% to 100% DDC are delivering 5 to 10 pounds per minute of abrasive out the blast nozzle. So you may be trying to store up to 600 pounds per hour of dust inside any cabinet dust collector. This is because cheap blasting media is the wrong shape or hardness for blasting cabinets and degrades quickly. Slag is used to clean houses, ships, and bridges safely and it does a great job when used only once. 

To Sum It Up

Cheap blasting media can create messy results inside a blasting cabinet. This is because cabinets are made to recycle abrasive over and over again. It can quickly overload the dust collector and create a failing machine. Rather than buying inexpensive abrasive media, buy high quality abrasives and use them in a blasting cabinet designed by an industry leader. Let Media Blast® help you get the right machine the first time! We make all Cabinets types and recommend the right machine over the phone or via our Buying Guide.