Abrasive Blasting 101
Updated January 2022: Not all blast cabinets are created equally and abrasive media selection is very much dependent on the application and machine at hand. Whether you’re doing aerospace engineering or cleaning a car part, using the right abrasive in the right machine is key to the success of your project. If you aren’t sure you have the right machine, check out our buying guide to confirm you have the right cabinet.
Updated January 2022: Recycling abrasive to be used again and again is unique to abrasive blast cabinets. Recycling isn’t possible if you’re performing portable blasting without a containment cabinet. So, how many times can abrasive be recycled? This is a very hard question to answer as an absolute because the number of recycles depends on many variables which can extend or shorten any abrasive recycle rate we’ve published at the end of this article. The…
External abrasive storage in abrasive blast cabinets refers to situations where abrasive is stored outside of the blast cabinet. In a direct pressure abrasive delivery system where a pressure pot and the external abrasive storage are used, all the abrasive is removed from inside the cabinet each time it exits the nozzle which allows the use of many different pressure pot sizes. Because the pot is sealed when blasting, it must stop blasting to refill the pot….
An important component of the abrasive blasting industry is micro flow controls incorporated into cabinets. Micro flow controls allow ultra-precise abrasive flow delivery, not about the size of the cabinet itself. Some manufactures think that just placing a small nozzle on any blasting cabinet will accomplish micro flow delivery, but that’s the quickest way create a nonfunctioning sandblasting cabinet. (Think of 500 people in a building all trying to exit out of a single doorway.)
