Abrasive Blasting

Abrasive blasting is used to finish, clean or prepare metals and plastics using a variety of media in blasting machines. Blasting removes surface debris such as rust or other types of residual contaminants and scale. This process is also important in the cleaning and roughening of part surfaces prior to coating. The increased surface adhesion of a suitably blasted part results in a stronger bond between the coating and the parts surface. Abrasive blasting of medical implants increases the implant surface area, which in turn increases the percentage of bone attachment for medical and dental implants.
Abrasive Blasting Media
Some of the most common types of abrasive blasting media include glass bead, ceramic and aluminum oxide. Glass beads result in a soft, bright finish and are excellent for shot blasting and light deburring applications. Aluminum oxide is very abrasive and is used for blasting some of the hardest metals and surfaces. Other types of metallic, synthetic, and mineral blasting media are available depending on customer needs.
Abrasive blasting is ideal for the following applications:
Removing glare when under surgical lighting for medical and dental instruments
Improving adhesion for medical devices
Increasing implant surface area, which increases the percentage of bone attachment for medical and dental implants.
Descaling (removal of heat treat scale)
Texturing for paint adhesion
Texturing for mechanical function
Producing a uniform cosmetic finish
Arrow Cryogenics has a wide variety of blasting machines, each dedicated to one type of media to avoid cross-contamination. Several of our machines are dedicated strictly to medical components and other machines are able to run a wide variety of parts.
Shot Blasting and Peening
Shot blasting utilizes specialized machines to peen the surface of material with one of many sizes of media. This is done to remove surface debris, such as mill scale and provide a surface prepared for paint adhesion or flash removal. Stainless steel and steel media is most commonly used in our shot blasting process with different sizes available to provide a wide range of finishes. Arrow Cryogenics has a wide variety of shot blasting machines available to process our customers’ parts.