TOPIC:

Jonny wrote:

I think you should write up your process for Lars to put on the front page

Thanks JR I'm still gathering all the information and testing on more variety of parts to see if there is much if any variation in the final results

This is great work Andy!
The final result you came up with looks very similar to the finish I got on the load of SRB parts I got bead blasted some years ago.
I don't think you should worry about the surface degenerating, as mine have not. Except if the surface is too coarse, and dirt sticks to it. I have seen no oxidation.

-Lars

HI!... I have been glass beading RC car parts for years now. I think I use my glass beading cabinet more now for RC parts then I do for the automotive parts it was bought for. lol. It also works great on plastic as well.

Non-existant user wrote:

HI!... I have been glass beading RC car parts for years now. I think I use my glass beading cabinet more now for RC parts then I do for the automotive parts it was bought for. lol. It also works great on plastic as well.

Hey what size glass beads @ what pressure do you use

I struggled to find any clear information on what difference the size of the nozzle makes ... I had thought using a smaller nozzle might have the effect of speeding up the media (same volume of air going through a smaller space = higher air velocity, therefore higher media velocity?) but apparently a bigger nozzle means you can blast a bigger area, but at the expense of using much more air - and therefore needing a beefier compressor. The reason why it took me a while to get my head round it was due to the first of those concepts being referred to as "productivity" - there's something else to add to my loathe list - using euphemisms where none are necessary



This is my experience so far - left hand casing has just had ultrasonic cleaning, right had has had that + walnut shell blasting (4/16 mesh (0.5mm particle size) @ 95ish psi, 5mm nozzle). Colour difference is not as marked as the photo suggests, but it is cleaner - the media has got to nooks & crannies better than the US tank & scrubbing. It's failed to do anything about the variations in colour caused by water/oil/grease/sealant/dirt etc. Overall - far to gentle to be useful for this application.








Next up - recycled glass grit (0.2mm-0.6mm, 6mm nozzle, 40 psi)

This setup was only just enough to take care of the colour differences - less psi wasn't cutting the mustard. It has resulted in the usual "problems" though: the "whitening" might not be quite as bad as I've seen, but the parts have definitely got that "fingernails down a blackboard" feeling about them, and look quite sparkly close up under good light. This is definitely an intermediate step, I couldn't/won't leave them like this.

Next step is (I guess) to spend 40+ GBP on a tub of glass beads, I don't believe the walnut would have the balls to peen the surface back again...

JR I would be interested to know, after blasting with aluminium oxide what finish the Walnut shell media would yield?

So tonight I continued stage 1 blasting of my alloy parts and started to notice it was taking longer and longer I checked the tip in my gun and found that the continued blasting had blown the hole out So after speaking to my neighbour and looking online I made a steel one It's now 40mm long ( 5mm longer than the original ) with 6mm hole and chamfered at the inlet end for increase flow Tested it out and it works a treat Then my cabinet light blew

to be continued .......

And just found these will pick some up instore tomorrow

HI!... I had a buddy machine me a tip out of carbide. 6 years now and it still looks new.

I used my new tip tonight and what a difference I believe it has halved the time to do each part Now all the parts I needed to do before changing the media over to glass are done (I still picked up that 3 pack for future needs )