Surface finishes from glass bead abrasive blasting

[Tunalover]

Anyone have any correlation on this involving time, velocity, pressure, and bead size?


Tunalover

 

[ajack1]

It depends hugely on what you are trying to achieve as well as glass beads many other substances can be used, basically like most other “machining” operations a high removal rate equals a poor finish and a slower removal rate equals a superior one.

Basically it depends on many factors, what material are you looking to blast, what size are the parts, what volume of work will be done, how heavy is the material you are trying to remove rust/ paint, how good does the finish need to be?

I am not sure this will help but it might.

http://www.acegrit.co.uk/acegrit/gritblaster/index.html

 

[kenvlach]

Glass bead is used a lot on aluminum & stainless steel.
For cleaning (e.g., removing paint & light oxide films), deburring, light or medium peening and as a final finish (sort of pearly on stainless, doesn't show fingerprints).
Common bead sizes 20-325 US mesh. There are 13 bead sizes listed (10-400 mesh) in MIL-PRF-9954B GLASS BEADS: FOR CLEANING AND PEENING at

http://assist.daps.dla.mil/quicksearch/basic_profile.cfm?ident_number=7845

Need good dust filters since fine particulate & silicosis threat (OSHA).

Some brief info from the people who wrote the chapter on glass bead blasting in the Metal Finishing Guidebook

http://www.pottersbeads.com/Markets/PeeningFInishingCleaning.asp

You can post questions on their site.