Ferrous metals include mild steel, carbon steel, stainless steel, cast iron and wrought iron. These metals are primarily used for their tensile strength and durability, particularly mild steel which helps support the tallest skyscrapers and longest bridges in the world. You can also find iron and its alloys in house construction, industrial containers, large-scale piping, automobiles, railroad tracks, most of the tools and hardware you use around the house and the knives you cook with at home.
Due to the high amounts of carbon used during their creation, most ferrous metals and ferrous alloys are vulnerable to rust when exposed to the elements. While this is not true of wrought iron, which is so pure iron that it resists oxidation,
Shot blasting systems are used in many industrial fields for mechanical processing, cleaning, finishing or improving the strength of metals. The process involves subjecting the piece to a jet of spherical or angular metal shot or another abrasive. There are different types of shot blasting systems: the simplest are those consisting of manual compressed air sandblasting machines while the automatic systems use a turbine powered by an engine to increase the output speed of the abrasive. Using a shot blasting system changes the surface of the treated piece which can undergo different processes depending on its final use.
The expression sand for sandblasting normally refers generically to the abrasive media used in the various shot blasting systems, both with compressed air and with turbine.
What is the abrasive to use for sandblasting?
Silica sand is common sand but its chemical name is silicon dioxide. Also known as quartz, silica is one of the most common minerals in the world. Silica sand is weathered quartz rock and is the type of sand found on most beaches around the world. It has a good efficiency for sandblasting because the particles are quite uniform in size and the almost microscopic sharp
If you work in the blasting industry, you know that choosing the right material for your abrasive is crucial to achieving the desired result. Two of the most common materials used for making metal shot are steel and cast iron, but people are often unsure of the difference between the two. In this article, we will explore the differences between cast iron and steel and how these affect the choice of the right abrasive for your blasting process.
Cast iron is an iron alloy with a significant amount of carbon, usually between 2.1% and 4.3%: thanks to this feature, cast iron is an extremely hard material, ideal for applications requiring strong abrasion such as blasting cast iron parts, cleaning boiler pipes, removing resistant paint, and much more.
