Our Bead Blasting service applies glass beads at high speed to remove surface deposits without significant metal removal, so you get an attractive bright matte surface finish, without damaging the surface.
Glass bead blasting gives a fantastic finish
You’ve heard the saying smooth as glass – and the polishing effect of glass beads creates a great looking matte surface that does not require painting and is suitable for use outdoors without any coatings applied. With a hardness of 5-6 Mohr, glass beads provide a smoother and brighter surface finish than more angular abrasive mediums.
A bead blasted surface is smooth and hard wearing, providing rust, dirt and grime resistance, and a non-grippy surface that allows components to slide smoothly without gripping and jamming. The bead blasting process improves the material’s corrosion resistance, fatigue life, wear resistance and surface hardness.
Glass bead blast finishing offers the flexibility to remove surface imperfections including minor scratches, scuffs, burrs, rust, scale, paint, heat tint, tea stains, fungus and mould.
Glass bead blasting does not add or remove material unlike other surface finishes such as polishing, painting and anodizing, so the tolerance and fit up of parts is preserved – and because no acid is required there is no acid staining.
Stainless Engineering Glass Bead Blasting Booth
Our on-site glass bead blasting booth is 5,000mm wide x 3,000mmH x 9,700mmL uses soft media (-250 – + 150 Microns). The soft media is ideal for creating a uniform clean surface appearance where fingerprints and over handling marks on stainless steel are minimised.
Our Blasting Booth is dedicated to stainless steel and aluminium, so there is no risk of mild steel contamination, and our blasting media is non-toxic, non-hazardous with zero free silica.
Your part can be sealed (easy to clean) or unsealed after blasting, and we offer a pickup and delivery service on request.
Glass Bead Blasting is ideal for creating a smooth surface on non-ferrous materials including stainless steel, aluminium, brass, bronze, copper, glass and acrylic. We are commonly asked to bead blast marine and automotive components, custom made stainless steel equipment, beverage and food processing equipment and architectural components.
Glass bead abrasion can be used in lighter processes involving fine detail work, to remove surface defects on aluminium and stainless steel components, or for more aggressive deburring of metal castings and automotive parts. Glass bead blasting is a safe and effective abrasive blasting method for cleaning, deburring and prepping metal surfaces. Glass beads are used for several different types of blasting:
- Finishing – texturing a freshly made part (coated or uncoated) to create a light burnish
- Cleaning – removing mould, lichen, grime and dirt or cleaning metal as part of electroplating and other metal finishing processes. Glass bead blasting will clean the surface without changing the part dimensions.
- Deburring – smoothing off imperfections after welding and manufacture of parts to allow accurate assembly and operation
- Peening – a cost-effective, stress-resistant method of creating a uniform surface on a metal part
A part can often be cleaned, deburred, peened and finished in one session, offering potential time and cost savings.
Glass bead blasting is better for the environment – and us
Manufactured from lead-free, chemically inert soda lime-type glass into small ball shapes, glass beads for blasting contain no free silica, and can be cleaned and recycled up to 30 times. Glass beads are also safe for humans – whereas sand blasting particles contains small amounts of silica that can damage lungs and foliage – and the sand is very difficult to contain and reclaim.