Sandblasting Equipment

Sandblasting equipment is required for industrial, commercial and home use applications using steam, cold water pressure or hot water machines to clean, abrade or smooth surface areas. Portable blast equipments are great for outdoor jobs that are powered by diesel air compressors.

Air compressors provide large volume of high pressure air to a single or multiple blast pots. Blast pots are pressurized, tank-like containers filled with abrasive materials that allow adjustable amounts of blasting grit into the main blasting line. The number of blast pots is dictated by the volume of air the compressor can provide.

Fully operational blast systems are easily mounted on trailers to offer mobility and ready transportation wherever they are needed. In wet blasting, abrasives are put into pressurized stream of water or other liquid creating slurry for use in applications where dust generation needs to be contained. Portable applications may or may not recycle the abrasive.
Sandblasting cabinets are closed loop systems allowing operators to blast a part and recycle the abrasive. Having four distinct features that include the cabinet, abrasive blasting system, abrasive recycling system and dust collector, they are operable from outside of the cabinet with gloved arms extending through holes in the cabinet, as you watch through a view window. The blast is turned on and off by operating the foot pedal.

Automated blast cabinets deployed over conveyance systems are for large quantities of abrasives that also incorporate several blast nozzles. There are three systems typically used in a blast cabinet. Two include siphon and pressure that are dry systems while the third is the wet system. Wet blast cabinets inject abrasives or liquid slurry into a compressed gas stream. Wet blasting is used when the heat produced by friction in dry blasting could damage surfaces.

Of the other two the siphon blast system uses compressed air to create vacuum in a chamber called the blast gun. The negative pressure draws abrasive in the blast gun when compressed air directs abrasives through the blast nozzle. This reaches out through the nozzle that directs particles toward the area to be worked upon.

Nozzles come in numerous shapes, sizes, and materials. Tungsten carbide lines most materials that are used for mineral abrasives. Much more wear resistant are silicon carbide and boron carbide nozzles that are used for harder abrasives. Inexpensive abrasive blasting equipments often make use of ceramic nozzles.

Finally the pressure blast system has abrasive stored in the pressure vessel that is sealed. The vessel is pressurized to the same pressure as the blast hose attached to the bottom of the pressure vessel. The abrasive goes in through a measuring device into the blast hose to be conveyed into compressed gas through the blast nozzle.

A blast room is works just like a blast cabinet with an operator working inside the room. Having three components – containment structure, abrasive blasting system and dust collector the recycling system includes manual sweeping and shoveling of abrasive back into the blast pot. Full reclaim floors may convey abrasives mechanically for recycling.