Glass/Garnet Blasting
In meeting customer requirements we are pleased to inform our valued clientele that our services now include both Glass & Garnet Blasting
Our glass blasting media is an engineered “abrasive blasting” media manufactured from 100% recycled bottle glass. Crushed glass media is a good general purpose blasting abrasive. Also with the media coming from a 100% recycled source we are saving the natural resource of the virgin sand beds and the waste created if all this glass went to landfill.
Environmentally and Operator Friendly Blasting Media
100% recycled silica sand (glass) is safe to use, is non hazardous, non toxic, completely inert, is safe to use around water and eliminates the health risk of airborne carcinogens. Glass dust is classified as only “nuisance” dust because it contains less than 1% free silica and it contains virtually none of the OSHA identified Heavy/Toxic Metals associated with slags and some other mineral abrasives like natural olivine. Also with glass being translucent, visibility and productivity are significantly improved when compared to an environment using traditional hard blasting media.
How can glass be silica-free?
Recycled bottle glass is chemically known as Amorphous Silica. Free-silica is commonly found in traditional blasting sand and other hard abrasive blasting media. Silica-sand dust in its natural state has an “open”crystalline structure that has the capability of sticking to lung tissues. When this happens, the likelihood of developing a serious respiratory disease called Silicosis increases. Because our recycled glass blast media is amorphous, its crystalline structure is “closed”, which makes it impossible to physically stick to human lung tissue. When a person is exposed to amorphous glass fines or dust, the body will expel the dust as it would any other type of natural dust.
The Benefits of Glass Blasting
In addition to operator safety benefits, crushed glass delivers a natural, whiter metal finish than some other blasting media, and significantly decreases embedment issues—up to 5 times less than slag blast media. Glass is great for removing typical coatings, paint, scale, light rust etc., and in other surface preparation applications such as the polishing of aluminum, stainless, copper and brass. The list is endless. Glass is versatile, cost effective, and can be used as a dry blasting media or combined with water for use in slurry blasting machines.
The Benefits of Garnet Blasting
Garnet blasting, done with care, can be used across the spectrum however as we have other media options at hand we keep garnet for applications where aggressive hard blasting is required.