The basics of wheel blasting

The fundamentals of wheel blasting for part cleaning and

paint prep
THE FABRICATOR AUGUST 2013
AUGUST 1, 2013
BY: TIM HESTON

Blast cleaning can be an extremely effective way to prepare a part for coating. But if
the machine isnt set up, maintained, or monitored properly, the operation can go
awry.

Figure 1: In blasting, its the mediabe it angular grit or round shot (a magnified view depicted here)that does the work.
Image courtesy of Rosler Metal Finishing USA.

A fabricator can spend serious time manually preparing workpieces to obtain an optimal finish. If
the paint or coat coming off the line doesnt adhere properly, often its because someone skipped
a surface preparation step, or didnt prepare the entire surface completely. A company can ensure
a finishing team knows the best techniques for all this, or, if volumes are sufficient, buy or send
the part out for blasting. The latter seems much, much simpler.
But blast cleaning really is anything but simple. Consider the common wheel blast system
(seeFigures 1 and 2). It could be an inline system, where a monorail or conveyor carries parts in
a continuous flow; or a batch system, where batches of parts are placed in a blast cabinet. In both
systems, a blast wheel rotates and throws shot or angular grit toward the workpiece, cleaning off
rust and mill scale and prepping the surface for paint. Thats the ideal, when all variables are
adjusted properly for the job at hand.
If they arent adjusted and monitored as they should be, the operation can go awry. At best, a
worker may find that paint isnt adhering to a batch of parts and trace it back to a problem in the
blasting systemsay, an improper abrasive mix. At worst, a blasting cabinets liner can
deteriorate to the point where the machine self-destructs.
It comes back to the fundamentals, the basic basics of blast system operation and maintenance.
The heart of the system beats inside the wheel housing (see Figure 3). Inside this unit, an

impeller pumps the blast media through whats known as the control cage located in the center of
a rotating wheel, and onto the blades that throw the media toward the workpiece in an arc or
wave.
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This is how the machine produces a blast pattern on the part. The pattern usually is several
inches wide and can be several feet long, depending on the machine and the wheels distance
from the workpiece. The farther the wheel is from the part surface, the larger and less
concentrated (that is, fewer media impacts per square inch) the blast pattern becomes. And as
sources explained, its the abrasive media that really does the work. Four, eight, or more wheels
strategically placed in a system can ensure the shot or grit impacts all workpiece surfaces that
need to be cleaned and paint-prepped.
Some variables arent under the operators control. A blast machine must be designed or
purchased for the applicationfor a specific part or part family, or, at a job shop, to handle the
majority of parts requiring paint prep. If a machine doesnt have enough wheels in the right place
for a certain part, theres little a fabricator can do but send the part out to a company that does
have such a system, or prep the part manually.
But other problems are under the operators control. As with manual paint prep, piece parts must
be degreased and cleaned. And when parts reach the machine itself, the operator needs to ensure
all variables are correct for the job at hand. These include media type, size, concentration, and
mix, as well as basic preventive maintenance (PM).

Media Type and Speed

The basics start at the end of the line: the parts coming out of the paint or powder coating booth.
What are their coating coverage requirements, and what surface finish does the powder or paint
manufacturer specify to achieve the best results? Whats the average peak-to-valley depth of the
abraded surface (measured in mils, with 1 mil equivalent to 25 microns, or 0.001 in.)?
If its a high-pitch peak count per inch, then youll use a grit media, because [compared to
round shot] the angular grit can get you many more impacts in a given surface area, said Rick
Roth, blasting product manager for Rosler Metal Finishing USA, Battle Creek, Mich.
Blasting imparts kinetic energy onto the sheet metal surface, and too little or too much energy
can lead to problems. The amount of energy depends on the size of the blasting media particle as
well as its speed.

Figure 2: A blasting system preps part surfaces for coating quickly and completelyif, of course, its properly set up and
maintained. Photo courtesy of Wheelabrator Group.

Industry charts might show that to obtain a 3-mil surface profile a blast machine needs to be
loaded with a certain media size. As Roth explained, most standard tables, from the Society of
Automotive Engineers and elsewhere, are calculated with the assumption that the media is
moving between 245 and 250 feet per second. (The machine and wheel characteristics determine
the speed of the abrasive media. For a speed approximation, multiply the wheel diameter by its
RPM and divide by 180.) But if large shot were to hit the surface of a 10-gauge sheet at that
speed, the particles would warp the surface.
In blasting, you build up compressive stresses, said Peter Mosier, applications and sales
manager at Wheelabrator Group, Burlington, Ont. If you do that to only one side of the part and
not the other, youre going to cause the part to bend or warp.
Round shot can have a particularly effective peening action when it hits the surface, which is
why the media is used in shot peening, a far more controlled process thats designed to induce
compressive stresses on a workpiece.
If youre using round shot, you may intend to clean the surface, but you will also be peening it
at the same time, said Steve Seabrook, applications engineer at Wheelabrator. If youre
cleaning 0.5-inch steel plate, a little bit of peening on the surface doesnt matter. But if youre
cleaning light-gauge parts, you may want to use small-sized grit, which helps avoid putting
excessive compressive stresses onto the part. You can control [these stresses] in a lot of different
ways, depending on the kind of media youre using, the workpiece exposure time in the blast
zone, as well as the velocity and volume of the media being thrown.

Material Mix
An encyclopedia could be written on the various abrasive types and mixes available, but as
sources described, one common thread is the importance of the proper media mix. A cleaning
application may call for S-280 shot (called such because 85 percent of the shot particles are
retained on a 0.0280-in. mesh screen).
The particles, though, break down into smaller particles after use as they cycle repeatedly
through the machine. So what starts as S-280 eventually becomes S-230, S-170, S-110, and
smaller before being separated out into a hopper.
Having an even balance between different particle sizes is critical, which is why adding media to
a machine can be a delicate affair. As the machine discards used, too-small-to-be-effective
abrasive, the same amount of new, larger abrasive should be fed into the system.
The rule of thumb is that you will consume, in pounds per hour, half of what your wheel
horsepower is, said Tyler Cotton, president of Blast Abrade Inc., Elyria, Ohio. So if you have a
single blast wheel thats 20 horsepower, youll consume about 10 pounds of shot per hour. If you
have four 20-HP blast wheels, thats 80 HP altogether, so youll consume about 40 pounds of
media per hour.
Many machines add media automatically, but some systems require operators to add media as
needed. To do so they monitor an ammeter that measures the amperage load on the wheel. For
most efficient usage, that ammeter should be at a fully loaded reading, as specified by the
equipment manufacturer.

But say an operator on a prior shift didnt pay attention to the ammeter and fails to replenish the
system with media. So as small particles separate out and exit the system, the abrasive level
declines significantly. This puts a serious damper on blasting efficiency, but it also throws the
media mix off-kilter.

Figure 3: The wheel turbine is the heart of the blasting system. Photo courtesy of Rosler Metal Finishing USA.

An inexperienced operator on the next shift might notice that the abrasive level is low and so
dump a large amount of fresh media into the system, only to find hes still having trouble. The
ammeter shows the wheel is fully loaded, but the mix level remains uneven, with too many large
particles. This swings the pendulum the other way, making the blasting action much too
aggressive. In this case, he must cycle the media through the machine (with test pieces, to avoid
accelerated machine wear) until enough particles wear, re-creating the optimal mix of media
sizes in the system.
Fluctuations in media consistency in your blast system can really throw a monkey wrench in
your processes down the line, Seabrook said, adding that along with monitoring media levels,
operators need to keep an eye on parts exiting the system. Some parts can carry a lot of abrasive
media out of the machine.

Finding the Hot Spot

When setting up a machine, the operator needs to read the blast pattern, often called checking
the hot spot because the impacted area becomes hot to the touch. Running a painted test piece
through the machine (30 seconds of media exposure usually does the trick) can reveal what that
blast pattern looks like.
If you blast for 30 seconds, you feel the area on the part, and its not hot, well, its hot
somewhere, Cotton said. The media may be hitting the roof or floors [of the cabinet], so you
have to make the adjustments until you get that hot spot on your setup piece.
The position of the control cage opening determines where the abrasive shot or grit wave will
start and, ultimately, the resulting blast pattern. The size of the control cage opening determines

how long the pattern will be and, hence, how dense the impacts are on the workpiece (see Figure
4 and Figure 5).
The abrasive medias path between the control cage opening and the workpiece isnt a straight
line. Once the media exits the control cage, the wheel blades rotate and propel the particles in a
completely different direction. To account for this, control cages are set to positions analogous to
a clock face. A control cage set at, say, 1 oclock may propel a wave of shot or grit downward,
close to the 6 oclock position, depending on the wheel diameter, RPMs, and other parameters.
But not everyone in a plant may know this. A classic problem occurs when an inexperienced
factory maintenance person looks at the cage opening and thinks thats where the media comes
out, and so aims that opening directly toward the workpiece, Roth said. But it takes up to 180
degrees to come off the blades. So when hes done, the system blasts media right up into the
wheel housing, and the shot or grit is batting around everywhere. You can destroy a wheel
housing very quickly doing this.

Why Preventive Maintenance Matters

When components wear, things go awry, and their causes may not be obvious. A.W. Mallory, in
his back-to-basics guide Guidelines for Centrifugal Blast Cleaning, describes a situation in
which the operator sees the ammeter drop below full load. This means the wheel isnt throwing
enough abrasive and is below its maximum cleaning powerso he should add more media,
right?
Not necessarily. If the operator shuts off abrasive flow to the wheel and sees the ammeter jump
briefly to full load before falling off to a no-load reading, the wheel actually may have excessive
abrasive flow and, like a car engine, be choked or flooded. If the needle just drops after shutting
off abrasive flow, then the wheel is indeed being starved of media.
However, lack of media in the hopper still may not be the problem. Both a flooded or starved
wheel may be caused by a malfunctioning flow-control valve, worn wheel parts, power loss from
motor drive problems, or obstructions in the abrasive recirculating system.

Figure 5: Optimizing the blast pattern for the job at hand is critical for proper blast machine setup. Image courtesy of Rosler
Metal Finishing USA.

The last includes an air-wash separator system that removes scales, fines, and tramp metal from
used abrasive, and also filters out abrasive particles that are too small to useagain, to maintain
the optimal abrasive mix. Spent abrasive and particles from the workpiece are moved via gravity,
or rotary-screw or shaker conveyors, from the base of the blast cabinet, up an elevator conveyor
system, through a screen mesh, and to the air-wash separator, where the media falls in what
should be a uniform curtain. Air flows through the curtain to separate out the waste particulate,

which falls into a collection hopper, while dust and fines are blown to a dust collector
(see Figure 6). The good abrasive flows back into the system for reuse.
The length of that curtain is critical to maintaining your abrasive mix, Seabrook said. If its
too long, you dont get the right air-to-shot ratio. If its too short, your abrasive curtain is too
thick for the air to flow consistently. We recommend that the operator check to ensure he has a
full curtain of abrasive [in the separator] at least once a day.
As Mallorys guide details, too much airflow through the curtain can remove excessively large
particles; too little airflow wont remove fines; either problem negatively affects the blast media
mix. Airflow problems also can come from holes or leaks in the separator housing. If the
abrasive curtain is uneven, something may be lodged in the screen mesh above the separator unit,
or the baffles or spreader bars may be improperly adjusted.
The air-wash separator cant work properly if the dust collector isnt properly maintained. The
dust collector needs to be maintained and cartridges changed periodically to achieve a certain
differential pressure, specified by the manufacturer. If you open the blast cabinet and see a puff
of dust, you may have problems, Roth said.
Other high-wear items include internal blast-wheel components, including the impeller, control
cage, and blades on the wheel itself. As those internal components start to wearespecially the
impeller and control cagethe blasting media does not flow to the blades properly. This can
cause abrasive turbulence inside the wheel, increasing wear and causing the abrasive wave to
spread out farther, thereby making it less concentrated than it once was, Seabrook said. This all
makes blasting less efficient.
If your blades start to wear as well, Seabrook said, blast media will go all over the place. If
they wear too much, you can actually shatter the components inside the wheel.
The cabinet liner is another component that needs to be regularly checked and replaced. A
telltale sign of a failed liner is a hole in your cabinet and high-speed shot sailing across the
shop, Seabrook said.

Expensive Defects
Basic wheel-blast operation and maintenance havent changed for decades, but that doesnt make
the process any less critical. In any fab shop, blast cleaning occurs near the end of the
manufacturing process. A lot of upstream laborcutting, bending, welding, grindinggoes into
any part entering the blasting system. The later a problem occurs in manufacturing, the more
expensive that mistake is.

Figure 6: In an air-wash separator, air flows through the curtain to separate out the waste particulate, which falls into a
collection hopper, while dust and fines are blown to a dust collector. The good abrasive flows back into the system for reuse.
Image courtesy of Wheelabrator Group.

Tim Heston
Senior Editor
FMA Communications Inc.
833 Featherstone Road
Rockford, IL 61107
Phone: 815-381-1314