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What is the purpose of wheel blasting?
Wheel blasting is used to restore and repair superficial damage to alloy wheels.
In this blog post, we will examine why alloy wheels need to be treated for superficial damage and how we restore and protect the metal.
Overview
Alloy wheels take a significant portion of the cosmetic damage due to constant use during a car’s life cycle. Typical indication of damage comes in scuffs, scrapes, and chipping of the metal. If left untreated, corrosion can set in and risk the integrity of the whole wheel. Wheel corrosion poses a safety hazard for the driver and, dependent on the extent of the corrosion damage, a costly replacement of the wheel itself.
Blasting the wheel’s surface removes existing pitting, chipping, and corrosion, leaving the metal bare and ready for adhesion for later priming and powder coating. Powder coating the wheel’s surface adds a protective barrier against pitting and scraping, preventing corrosion and future damage to the wheel.
What is the purpose of a wheel blasting cabinet?
While it may seem economical to carry out wheel blasting outside with a blast machine and expendable abrasive, having a dedicated wheel blasting cabinet offers greater long term value. This is because alloy wheel abrasion cabinets utilise recyclable abrasives ensuring cost savings made on blast media and less downtime spent on filling the blast machine. Moreover, handling heavy alloys while blasting is time-consuming and inefficient. Therefore, wheel blasting cabinets include various loading devices to remove the physical labour of handling these heavy objects.
When blasting alloys inside a cabinet, we recommend using high chrome steel abrasive. High chrome steel abrasive is safe to use on most metallic substrates, including aluminium! In addition, while having a higher initial price point than expendable aluminium oxide, high chrome steel abrasive is highly durable and can be recycled hundreds of times before being spent. Thus, price savings are made from purchasing less abrasive. Lastly, high chrome steel grit has a rapid cleaning action due to its angular shape. As a result, less time is spent trying to achieve a specific finish on the substrate, ensuring a quick product turnaround.
Alloy wheel abrasion cabinets from Airblast also come with their own powerful dust extraction system, a pulse cartridge unit, which ensures optimal visibility for the operator. Inside, Airblast wheel blasting cabinets feature a heavy-duty wheel support strut. Once an alloy wheel is slid onto the mount, the front face of the wheel is presented to the operator, allowing for completely unfettered coverage over the entire wheel.
As standard, our wheel blasting cabinets come with;
- Internal LED overhead lights to illuminate the alloy for processing,
- A pressure regulator and gauge to ensure a controlled air supply,
- A large “clamshell” door for easy handling and loading,
- Conveniently placed an operator viewing window.
