Five Ways to Keep Blast Room Expenses in Check and Save Bucks!

In our 'State of Titan Abrasive' report from late December , we talked about the ups and downs of the business. Like most every manufacturer, we struggle with supply chain issues. And, like everyone, we're seeing costs rising, sometimes dramatically.

With competitive price and timely delivery, SUNSONG sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

With that in mind, our team came up with five tips you can use to help keep your blast room costs in check ' whether you're currently using a blast room or considering a new one.

1. Carefully consider the correct media for your application

Media comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and materials. From metal shot to plastic to organic materials such as walnut shells, each media type is suited to specific functions.

You also have to order a lot of it; ordering the wrong blast media means you'll have a costly material sitting around unused.

Choosing the right blast media depends on many factors, such as, the surface finish required, type of material being removed (paint, rust, mil scale, powder coating), application and material type, the blaster (nozzle size, pressure), and how often the media will be reclaimed. If you have a question about which media to use, please call us. We're happy to help.

Money saved: $$$

2. Don't skimp on maintenance ' especially employees' health and safety

Abrasive blast equipment requires more maintenance than almost any other equipment in a plant. Why? The constant stress and wear from the abrasive media.

Follow good 'housekeeping' practices by cleaning up in and around your blast room at the end of each shift.

Inspect doors and others areas weekly for wear or leakage and fix promptly.

Regularly check valves, hoses, nozzles, and protective gear, including helmets, gloves, etc. Air filters should be replaced based on number of hours used or manufacturer's recommendation. Follow maintenance schedules as listed in the equipment manuals.

Titan cartridge dust collector filters are self-cleaning and DO NOT need to be sent out. For detailed info, read our FAQ: Should We Send Our Titan Filter Cartridges Out for Cleaning? (Repeat: No!)

Use Titan replacement parts to ensure fit and long-wear

You can purchase Titan replacement parts for our blast rooms, blast machines, abrasive regulator valves, and other components at the Titan Parts Store.

You may be tempted to save money by using generic parts, such as filters for your dust collector. A customer tried this, but the filters didn't fit properly. Due to poor fit, dust got into the blower and coated the wheel, causing vibration. The result: Destroyed bearings. Read the story.

The customer ended up having to replace the blower. Needless to say, the small savings on filters went right out the window. Always use Titan brand nanofiber cartridge filters, which have been designed for your dust collector.

Money saved: $$$$

3. Blast room fabrication ' Reconsider DIY

Fabricating a high-end blast room yourself isn't the same as doing a house project. Even if you have construction skills, blast rooms have their own set of requirements, including the proper amount of air flow/exchanges, dust/media containment, lighting, etc. ' not to mention OSHA safety requirements.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website bead blasted aluminum.

One customer, for example, ordered a Titan blast room and decided to save money by handling the ductwork themselves. This meant they fabricated and installed it. Bad news. They ran into several issues, which delayed their blast room installation. Instead of saving money, they lost money, plus the time that could have been spent blasting.

Read our piece, Everything You Wanted to Know about Blast Room Ductwork! to see a photo of the DIY ducting that used too many elbows, which inhibited air flow.

If you do choose to install Titan equipment yourself, we HIGHLY recommend our Startup Service. You may be able to assemble equipment, but getting it tuned-in and running at optimal performance is best left to one of our expert Titan technicians.

Money saved: $$$$$

4. New blast room installation ' Eliminate any last-minute changes

One thing that significantly drives up installation costs is last minute changes because our engineering department didn't have all of the space dimensions, and other important details, when designing the blast room.

Then, when our installers arrive, they have to stop production because of problems with overhead beams, floor obstructions, or doors that don't allow enough access.

Another cost overrun is not having electrical or compressed air feeds in place before Installation Day. This means our installers have to come back to connect everything, do a test run, optimize the system, etc. This gets really expensive really fast.

Read Preparing for Titan Blast Room Installation by Titan's Chief Installer Ken Cloonan. Once you place your order, you'll also receive a PDF checklist of information we need, and tasks you need to complete, so that we can efficiently design, build, and install your blast room.

Money saved: $$$$$

5. Talk to us first! You'll save BIG bucks

The more hands a product passes through, the higher its cost (e.g. markup). At Titan, we removed these unnecessary markups by eliminating the middleman ' meaning you buy directly from us and pay a lower price.

When you call Titan, you talk directly to our engineering team (or heck, even me, the CEO). By working directly, you eliminate all the back and forth and get expert answers to your questions.

We can customize any application, regardless of how big or small the project. For example, we created a blast room for Framatonme's Nuclear Motor Refurbishment business in order to eliminate the potential for radioactive contamination. Read the case study.

For Fab-Tek, we created a custom blast room to clean and polish stainless steel for food processing conveyor systems. The new system includes a mechanical recovery system with cross screw (auger), two 6-cubic-foot blast machines, and a 12,000 CFM cartridge dust collector. Read the Installation Tech Tip.

Money saved: $$$$$$

If you're considering a custom blast room or need blast equipment for your operation, contact Titan or complete our RFQ form.

Our custom-engineered blast rooms have been purchased by companies large and small, including the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, GE Aviation, and NOAA, and installed across the US and Guam, and around the world, including Canada, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of stainless steel mirror sheet. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

Hey everyone! I'm new to the forum and am currently doing a complete rebuild of a CB550 motor that I have pulled apart. Every single piece of the engine has been disassembled (with the exception of the cylinder head studs). I have new seals, bearing, o-rings, and hardware labeled and ready to be installed. HOWEVER, I want to clean all of the cast aluminum parts prior to assembly. The ultimate goal is to prep the entire exterior surface for paint so that after it has been reassembled, I can take it to the paint shop and have it coated. I have access to a vapor blaster that uses 20% glass media, along with the high pressure water.

My question to experienced members is if the glass particles actually "embed" themselves in the surface of the cast aluminum. I have read on many other forums and boards that people have used glass blasting with a lot of success; however, there were no follow up posts to say that X number of miles later, there were still no problems. (No news is good news, right?) As this will be a winter project, I will take my time cleaning the parts to purge all of the glass media, re-tap the threaded holes, clean oil journals, etc...

I would love to hear if others have cleaned their parts with glass and have had success. If you had a failure due to glass ruining the internals, what was the extent of the cleaning that was done to purge glass left inside? This has been a labor of love so far, and I want to put this engine back together and be proud that I didn't take any shortcuts and possibly compromise the longevity of the seals, bearings, etc... Reaper pinged me with a PM to ask me to chime in. Sorry I have been absent from my favorite web forum recently, have been flat out with the new shop setup and operation.


>> Here are the questions I have for you:

>> 1. I am planning to clean, reassemble, and send the motor out for painting. Do I need to do all of this very quickly to avoid the surface becoming unsuitable for painting? (i.e. surface oxidation)

Not an issue. I'm in favor of letting a freshly blasted part dry overnight for one last blast with compressed air anyway. Then degrease the aluminum with lacquer thinner or acetone and have at it. I've painted blasted parts the next day and a month later, everything was fine.


>>2. Will the vapor blasting (depending on the grade of glass being used) leave particles of glass lodged in the aluminum? I've heard nightmarish stories of guys putting their engines back together even after cleaning (maybe not as thoroughly as they should have) and the piston rings and bearing surfaces were destroyed after particles became dislodged and got suspended in the oil.
Here is a video showing what I mean ( - The glass blasted one looks like it has glass lodged in it based on the shiny and reflective surface. I don't know if any cleaning was done on them after dry glass blasting.

As Cal points out above, this is "Monsters under the bed". I suppose it is theoretically possible to drive glass bead so hard and so directly that it could embed, but that would be shattered glass bead dust by then, and harmless. Most of the pressures used in vapor blasting, plus the use of the water slurry make this highly unlikely.


>>3. What is the best strategy for purging the blasted pieces of all glass? I've heard multiple hot baths with Tide, then pressure washing, cleaning with air and brushes, re-tapping holes, and then hot bathing the parts again is the best way to reassure myself no glass will destroy the engine.

Two things in general are critical:

First and foremost, do not vapor blast an oily or sludge-ey part. If your parts are CLEAN, and the rest of the process is good and the vapor blaster is setup properly, media will not stick, it will rinse off. I mean CLEAN. We use a hot water parts cleaner plus a solvent tank, rotary bore brushes, Q-tips, brake cleaner by the case, and more. We also remove all the oil gallery plugs. BEFORE we vapor blast a part it is spotless. Then we spend about as much time rinsing and clearing afterwards as we did vapor blasting, in the instance of a set of cases or a cylinder head. Other parts are easier.

Second, you need to plug any threads 6mm or smaller, and any blind passages, plus the oil passages. Media will lodge in those 1.0 threads and in blind holes, and you can blast water and air in them all day without clearing it. Don't let it get in there in the first place. We use powdercoater's plugs, and stainless socket head cap screws to plug. We have and use hundreds of both.

>>This bike is a winter project for me and I am replacing all of the seals, most of the bearings, and all of the o-rings. I just don't want to get the whole thing together, painted, and in the frame to find out that I did something incorrectly and have wasted all my time and money. I love working on the bike and am taking every step I can to make sure I rebuild it to the best of my abilities.

Good man, you are asking smart questions. When it comes time to reassemble, buy yourself a set of thread REPAIR taps, different than cutting taps, and a can of Tap Magic and a can of brake cleaner and strap on some personal protection for your face, eyes and hands. Crack open a beer, put on some tunes and settle in. Start out with a blast of compressed air, then put a drop of the TapMagic on the clean tap, run it in, run it out, inspect. Clean it off if it was cruddy and repeat if necessary till a new screw runs in and out very smoothly. Give it a shot of brake cleaner when you are done and then one last blast-out with compressed air. Repeat in the next hole, and always start with a clean tap. Pro engine builders will always start with this - so should you.

Good luck!

N.


I have no experience with painting engine components, nor any experience with vapor blasting, but I do have extensive experience with surface preparation techniques for structural bonding of metallic and composite structures in the military, aerospace, automotive, and sporting goods industries. Structural bonding has considerable overlap with painting, so there is still some relevance there.

As Nil points out, I would agree that glass embedding itself is something of a "monsters under the bed" kind of fear, with a slight modification. Sand and glass bead blasting are frequently considered no-no's in the aerospace industry due to fears of the media embedding itself into the adherend (the surface of the object to be bonded, e.g. an aluminum structure). The hesitation stems from the fact that aerospace and automotive industries generally require 6-sigma processes or higher (i've even heard of 9-sigma in some aerospace applications), which means (more or less) that there are less than 4 out-of-spec parts for every 1,000,000 parts produced (9-sigma would be an un-fathomably small number). If there is a small physical possibility that glass can be embedded into the aluminum, then they probably cannot use "conventional" blasting processes and meet the 6-sigma requirement. Because aero and auto drive a huge amount of the manufacturing and finishing industries, I would speculate that this fear has trickled down to reach our DIY cosmetic applications, even if the fear is not really a true concern.

Now, the above statement is really only true if you are properly cleaning the surface after blasting. Complex geometry, holes, etc. make it more difficult to properly remove the media, and this would be the concern that folks like us should be worrying about the most.