SandBlasting  has many benefits in the industrial sector. In this article we will go over the main benefits and see if Sandblasting is the right application for your job.

Benefits And Advantages Of SandBlasting

1. Removes Rust and Paint

2. Provides Excellent prep for new paint

3.  Effective on large and difficult areas.

4. Able to contain hazardous waste and mess

5. Cost effective

Removes Rust And Paint

The main reason people choose to sandblast something is to remove rust. It removes paint effortlessly at high pressure but more importantly takes the rust off the steel and leaves it with a clean white finish like new. Rust is very hard to remove and can hide under paint if not fully removed. This is why Bridges and even truck frames are usually sandblasted, to leave no room underneath the paint for rust to start spreading. Sandblasting also does minimal damage to thick steel compared to the damage rust can do , and even eating thru it in some cases. Sandblasting leaves a nice even  uniform finish to get your project looking brand new again. So if you are seeing signs of large rust or paint failure you will probably be better off with a sandblast. Now let’s look at the next benefit.

Better Prepping From SandBlasting

Sandblasting by far does a much better job prepping the surface for your new paint. This is probably the most important advantage to sandblasting. As you learned above it removes rust but it also leaves something called a profile. A profile is a measure of how rough a surface is. You may not be able to see it but if you run your hands across a blasted surface you can feel tiny edges from the grit hitting the steel. This is key for your new paint to stick to the surface. A nice even profile guarantees you get the full life out of your new paint which isn’t cheap! Compare that to using hand tools such as a grinder and sander, not only would the hand tools be 10 times slower nothing would be even and you would get different profiles all over the place. Not a good idea for a professional job. A blast hose also has the ability to blow all the dust off your steel ensuring a clean surface for application.

SandBlasting reaches tougher areas

Sandblasting saves so much time but on large jobs is where you really save/ make money. There’s a reason industrial tanks and bridges are blasted and thats to get hard to reach areas. The goal is to take off every spec of paint down to bare metal, this includes corners of beams and behind bolts you can not see. This seems like an impossible job but an experienced blaster has no trouble using technique and high pressure to get the job done. A blaster can aim the steel grit off metal and bolts and use its ricochet to bounce and it other areas you can not see. An example is blasting the inside of a pipe. The steel grit will bounce all around inside ripping up the paint you can not see. SandBlasting is the only way to fully blast tight areas like this. This is something very important to consider when comparing sandblasting to water jetting. Think of sandblasting as the better alternative if your surface area will be challenging to blast, example lots of bolts and unreachable areas you need cleaned.

Containing a blast is simple and makes for an easy clean up. Altho it is a very messy and dusty job a good company will build a containment out of tarps and wood and even lay plastic and tarps along the floor to prevent rust staining. A containment gets sealed almost air tight keeping dust trapped inside. Blasters where specific blast hoods rated for this much exposure with clean airlines running to their hood. A containment also would need a dust collector to suck out dust in the air making it possible to see inside. The dust collector uses special filters and collects hazardous dust. The grit is usually recycled thru the blasting machine using a powerful vacuum hose. All hazardous waste and chips are bagged and picked up by a specific company specializing in waste removal. When dealing with a good company they have this down to a system making for a clean job.

Containment and clean up from a SandBlast

Cost can be an advantage to blasting if done right. Too many people have wrong set ups for what they actually need. Please do research on what the surface you are blasting is . important questions to ask yourself, Will I be reusing the grit?, Am I blasting steel? how tough / thick are the coating being removed. You do not want to cheap out on the material you are blasting. Just remember to consider all the labor and diesel running while your blasters are trying to blast with smaller or softer grit than what is needed of steel. On big jobs production makes money and we use only steel shot on our industrial/ bridge jobs. It is recycled thru the vacuum hose and reused many times. Water jetting is the only competition to sandblasting as far as cost and production. Unless the are is perfectly flat with no bolts/welds/edges then the sandblasting method wins by a long shot. Just for the simple fact you can not get behind bolts and hard to reach areas. Water does not bounce therefore, you can only water jet straight on. Water jetting at any type of angle drastically cuts down production.

Conclusion:

As you can see picking sand blasting as a method of paint removal will leave you with some of the best quality that can be achieved. Remember to do your research on what blast media you will want to use and the size of the area in square feet. 90 percent of the time sandblasting is the method choses by companies and customers. water jetting being the next choice is great for industrial gas tanks and water tanks. the slowest method would be power tooling by hand. Removing paint by hand is slow and costly and is only to be done on tiny jobs or sections of a job.