What is Glass Blasting?

Glass bead blasting is a process used for treating the surface of many different materials for cleaning, finishing, or deburring by applying blast media to a surface, using pressurized air to propel it. Glass bead blasting is not the same as sandblasting. Glass beads are round and smooth, not coarse and jagged like sand. While sand will do the job, it wears the surface down and typically takes away the top layer of material. With the glass beads, it is a peening action to improve the surfaces properties, smooth out micro-cracks, tool marks, and micro burs, and reduce micro pores sizes that you see in powdered or cast metals leaving you a smooth burr-free surface to plate.

Blasting should not take place until all surface contaminants are removed. Oils and grease impede the effectiveness of the peening action, not to mention soil the media making it less effective for future jobs and causing more frequent change-outs. Resist the urge to put parts right into your plating tanks after the blasting process. The glass beading process can and will break down the beads, causing dust. This dust sticks to the parts, which will need to be blown off with compressed air and cleaned again in your alkaline cleaner. Remember, we still want the parts to be as clean as possible for plating. Skipping this step can cause missed plating, peeling, flaking, and, if gone undetected, premature part failure in the field of Powder Coating in Ahmedabad.