If you have a problem of descaling, degreasing, decarbonising, derusting or you need to carry out general components cleaning or surface preparation prior to painting, coating, plating or bonding, you may require radioactive decontamination or fine deburring or you may need to increase component life by stress relieving.
Your present method is probably one or more of the following:
- Use of strong effluent forming, environmentally hazardous chemical(s)
- Laborious handwork
- Shot or sand blasting
Dana-Ridge has introduced the Vaqua high volume wet blasting, a system which can solve these problems, without component damage and without harming the environment. The principle of the system is the bombardment of a high volume, recirculating flow of solid particles in water. The chosen solid media (usually glass bead or abrasive but other types can be used) does the work, but there is always a cushion of water between the component surface and media particles. This prevents impregnation, damage and the excessive breakdown of media.
What does Vaqua wet blasting do?
Vaqua wet blasting cleans, deburrs, decontaminates, deflashes, degreases, deoxidises, pre-plate finishes, and pre-bonding finishes. It also does swarf removal, peening, edge radiusing, mould and breaker plate cleaning, and more.
How is Vaqua wet blasting done?
The component surfaces are bombarded by a recirculating high volume flow of water borne solid particles (normally abrasive or glass beads), contained within the cabinet. The specially developed Vaqua pump pulls the concentrated slurry of media and water from the cabinet sump and pushes it at a constant high volume flow to the process gun.
Before the gun, a proportion of the water and media is diverted down the by-pass to provide slurry agitation. To accelerate the flow of media particles onto the surface of the work-piece a controlled flow of compressed air is introduced into the blast gun. The water in the system lubricates, washes, carries mild inhibitors/degreasers and eliminates dust formation.
The advantages of Vaqua wet blasting are:
- Complete control of blast processing - mild to aggressive, sateen to matte finish, and everything in between
- Versatility – You can have a wide range of finishes with one size and type of media. However, a variety of different media types can be used in the machine (glass bead, aluminium oxide, plastic, sodium bicarbonate and others) to suit the particular processing application
- Simultaneous removal of oil, grease, burnt on carbon, paint, scale, soil material or surface contaminant
- Environmentally friendly - no toxic or harmful chemicals are used and no atmospheric pollution is generated
- Complete elimination of dust. The wet blasting does not need ‘dry’ air
- No component erosion or impregnation - critical measurements are maintained
- Excellent economics - low media consumption, low maintenance costs, low power consumption vs. speed of processing.