
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Yes you can but you will have to supersaturate the water until you have grit..
Wet blasting will eliminate any issues/danger with blasting your parts. The water/slurry eliminates spark issues on contact and also eliminates airborne issues in the blast cabinet. If you choose the “the advanced closed loop rinse” option on the axis cabinet, you will also be able to continuously filter out the removed material to further eliminate safety issues.
The two finishes are completely different. Most engine rebuilders wet blast their parts with glass beads, but there is no reason why you can’t shine the side covers. These parts are a lot easier to deal with as far as polishing goes. Obviously, cylinders and heads would be near impossible to polish due to the cooling fins.
If the parts are not scraped up or deeply pitted, I would suggest that you try to polish them first. If there are a lot of scares, it is likely that you will need to sand and then polish. Or, sand, bead blast, and then polish!
I am assuming that you will use fine aluminum oxide to give you a consistent, fine “roughness” for your coating. We always recommend having a few parts blasted before you purchase a machine to be sure that the part is undamaged. That said, wet blasting is almost always the choice in equipment where part integrity is very important. We have been successful in cleaning and surface preparation even on much softer, thin materials such as copper. Your parts should be fine
Yes, Axis offers its closed loop rinse system. This system provides filtered water to a rinse gun inside the cabinet for use at any time. The elevated water level balances itself when you stop blasting. You can actually even operate the machine with this option even if you have no water source near the machine.
Definitely not! The media in a wet blasting machine is recirculated just like in most dry machines, however, the media is encapsulated in water, and therefore the impact is cushioned. Most customers tell me that they have cut their media budget in half.
The best-wet blast machines are made from materials that are just much more expensive than those used in dry machines. Axis uses only superior-grade stainless steel. If you consider that most customers combine other washing processes thus eliminating the cost of the equipment and likely an operator as well. And we only build the highest quality with long-term life in mind.
Vapor honing produces a finer finish than dry blasting and is ideal for the cleaning of more delicate components. The Axis machines use a water and abrasive slurry to simultaneously blast and degrease which prevents impregnation of media onto the component. One of the major advantages of vapor honing is that it is a dust-free process.
The machine can be supplied with a closed loop rinse system where the water used for the windscreen wash and rinsing after blasting is simply recycled and filtered in a sedimentation tank sited at the rear of the machine. Periodically this sedimentation tank needs emptying (usually once per week) and refilling with clean water.
The Axis cabinet uses a single phase 110V and a compressed air supply to operate. If the Axis cabinet uses an open loop, it will also require a water supply.
Although the Axis cabinet uses water to blast components, rust inhibitors and other detergents can be added to the application to ensure that metal components do not rust or corrode.
I advise keeping a dry if you have one. Some components have better results dry blasting first such as side covers and some engine cases. It all depends on the level of corrosion and also with a dry abrasive depending on grit size you can blend an oxidized surface for a more uniform finish. Some trial processing would determine what size grit to use.
Yes, it will however it is not the most efficient way of removing it.I suggest chemical or acid dipping as some like to call it. There are some good environmentally powder coat removers. They do need to be heated to work efficiently.


