Abrasive grit blasting instructions

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Abrasive grit blasting is used as a surface preparation technique in many metal finishing and coating industries and is considered a significant operation by many aerospace component manufacturers. When the abrasive grit blasting procedure is not properly performed, the subsequent operations that are performed on the part may get affected from the point of view of component integrity. This is because the abrasive grit blasting process modifies the surface and makes it activated to receive subsequent treatments and if it is not performed to the necessary specifications, then the quality of the component may be suspect.

It is thus imperative that instructions to the abrasive grit blasting operator be as specific as possible and as clear as possible to avoid any potential confusion and doubts. These instructions must be in a written form using simple language. Additionally, it is preferable that an engineering department or manufacturing department person go over these instructions with the abrasive grit blasting operator and clarify any questions that may still arise.

Such abrasive grit blasting instructions must include the abrasive media to be used, any blending ratios that are to be followed, air pressure settings, stand-off distance, blast gun angle, speed of movement, maximum number of re-use for the media, etc. A quality assurance checklist that the operator signs off after every job is a necessary step to ensure that the operator did indeed follow the instructions specified in the grit blast operation sheet.

For those organizations that use different kinds of media for different jobs, it is necessary to specify the proper media to be used for each job. Additionally, it is mandatory to specify that the grit blast cabinet be completely cleared of the media from the previous job before introducing new media for the next job; this is important because otherwise media may get contaminated and that leads to quality problems.