Continuously painting parts using an automated process often involves hanging the parts from a moving track using paint hooks. These hooks invariably will get a build-up of paint and need to be stripped. Abrasive blasting with the proper media will strip the paint and allow the maximum usage lifetime of the hooks. Using a tumble blaster will allow for automated blasting of many parts in a batch and minimal downtime for the hooks.
The two pictures below show the part both before blasting (painted black) and the hooks after blasting with either 60 Mesh Aluminum Oxide Grit or 12-16 Mesh Melamine Plastic Abrasive Blast Media. A batch of these parts were tumble blasted for only 6 minutes at 60 psi.
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| Aluminum Oxide Blasted (right) |
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| Melamine Blasted (right) |
Both media types removed the excess paint and left the parts ready for re-use. An initial review seems to appear that the Aluminum Oxide Grit did a better job of removing the paint.
Upon a closer analysis, the Melamine actually provided an overall better result as can be more clearly seen in the comparison picture below. The Melamine Plastic part on the left does have a small amount of paint left on the surface but enough exposed metal to allow for the hook to perform properly and even could be used in a electro-coating process, if necessary.
The Aluminum Oxide blasted part is also clean but this media tended to etch the metal and will ultimately result in fewer usable cycles and/or failure of the hook.
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