Hi There,

How abouy dry ice blasting – leaves no residue as the dry ice goes through sublimation and evaporates to CO2.

An alternative is soda blasting – the soda can be washed off with water and simply disolves and leaves surface clean.

Many thanks,

Neil

Blasting will only remove material if you use an abrasive blast media. If you use the correct type of media you can clean the surface without causing any damage to it.

How do I know this ?……..I have been designing automatic blast machines for the last 23 years.

I do agree that you do need to make sure ALL traces of media and dust are removed afterwards, and Ultrasonic cleaning is the way to go, (I design those too).

I am very lucky in that I have access to all our test machines at work, and have just blasted and utrasonically cleaned almost every component on a motorbike I am restoring.

Phil

I clean rusty machine parts the same way i would to pre-pair a steel panel for paint .

1) mechanical clean using wire brushes( hand of power ) ,scourer pads etc and don't push to hard on the wire brush if it a powered unit as you will gall the surface .

2) Degrease using thinners or similar and let it dry .

3) De-oxidize using a rust converter (phosphoric acid type ) this can be purchased at auto parts stores etc – keep the solution fairly weak and wear your PPE !

4) Wipe off with 2 wet rags , one is to take the bulk of the acid off the second to clean off any residue and neutralise it .

5) Immediately rinse with Methylated spirits to pick up the moisture ( it absorbs water ).

You would then allow it to dry and oil it .

The rust converter will kill the rust left in the pits on the surface that mechanical cleaning won't remove and NO IT WILL NOT EAT THE PARENT MATERIAL AS LONG AS IT IS STEEL OR CAST IRON !

If you want a shiny appearance then polish with a scotchbrite wheel (green type similar to a buffing mop) mounted on a bench grinder of power drill.

Funny you should ask …

I've just been getting a load of blasting done on some Land Rover bits prior to acid-etch and powder coating. My blasting chum told me a few helpful tales about the game; one I hadn't expected was how wonderful a finish you can get with bicab ( 'Soda Blasting'  ) only for it to go all titsy a few months later as the metallic salts swap electrons and blister the paint. So, as always, it pays to seek out good advice.

S'pose you might get away with vapour blasting a fully-deconstructed chuck. Maybe.

John

Edited By harold on 01/03/2012 19:28:05

nice result