Metal.
Surface Preparation – Nationwide
Sand Jet Cleaning of Metal
We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system but obviously sometimes traditional sand/bead blasting is more appropriate for metal cleaning.
However The ‘damp’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting. It also acts as a coolant, and therefore can clean thin metals, such as steel motor vehicle shells, without heating the surface causing distortion. In particular though this capturing of dirt means that the system can safely clean lead based paints from structural steelwork ad Cast Iron . It is also ‘soft’ enough to clean Aluminium or Alloy surfaces without heavy scratching – but enough profile to allow paint coats to fully bind to the cleaned surface.
A further advantage of the system we use is that it also uses far less abrasive than traditional sandblasting, making expensive abrasives, such as garnet, cost effective, and more significantly reducing waste. Abrasive does not need to be recycled, preventing cross contamination between jobs, and apart from in specialist cases, is not a major part of the running costs.
Grit or Sand Basting Metal
We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system but obviously sometimes traditional sand/bead blasting is more appropriate for metal cleaning.
However The ‘damp’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting. It also acts as a coolant, and therefore can clean thin metals, such as motor vehicle shells, without heating the surface causing distortion.
A further advantage of the system we use is that it also uses much less abrasive than traditional sand or grit blasting, making expensive abrasives, such as garnet, cost effective, and more significantly reducing waste. Abrasive does not need to be recycled, preventing cross contamination between jobs, and apart from in specialist cases, is not a major part of the running costs.
But, one significant disadvantage of the ‘damp’ system is that flash rusting can quickly occur with iron or steel surfaces, so we offer traditional grit or sandblasting as alternatives or as a post blast ‘flickover’ to remove flash rusting. Traditional Sand blasting uses more abrasive, but is also more aggressive – making it typically faster too.
Industrial Dry Ice Blasting
We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system that has been used nationwide for various cleaning tasks. The system causes minimal damage to an underlying surface and is flexible enough to tackle many cleaning tasks. The low pressure sand jet can clean surfaces without injecting large quantities of water into the surface, and with minimal surface damage, at the same time, the ‘wet’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting.
However, there are times when alternative methods are called for, one of which is Dry Ice blasting. Here a surface to be cleaned is blasted with solid CO2 particles, and the surface is cleaned through thermal shock, the massive volume change as dry ice particles turn into gas, and some abrasion of the surface contaminant.
The significant advantage of this system is that the ‘abrasive’ evaporates on impact, so the only ‘debris’ is the material being removed. It is nearly ‘dustless’ – about as dustless as it is possible to get for an open blast system – however it will still blow cobwebs, birds nests, paint debris etc. fairly liberally!
Galvanising
Zinga is a one-component cold applied galvanic zinc coating. Its unique formula provides environmentally safe cathodic protection to steel comparable with hot dip galvanising, with the added advantage that it can be applied, on site, like a paint. This sub frame was blasted and primed with Zinga in our blasting booth in East Yorkshire for a customer from Lincoln.
Key Benefits
- Zinga® means on site galvanising is possible. This therefore removes the dismantling and transport costs associated with hot dip galvanising.
- Due to organic binder, Zinga can exceed lifespan of hot dip Zinc.
- Zinga does not present any potential hydrogen inducement to load bearing welds therefore there is no danger of cracking. Steel coated with up to 60 um of Zinga does not require the grinding of edges before being welded to x-ray quality.
- Zinga can be “recharged” at any point in the future, on site, and without re-blasting.
- Worn or Rusty Galvanising can be also be repaired and re-charged
- It can be used as a primer in a duplex system and can easily be painted over with a variety of top coats including powder coatings
- Certified by the UK Ministry of Defence and US Military
Priming and Painting
Primers and Topcoats can be applied to protect the steel from corrosion. Zinga is a one-component cold applied galvanic zinc coating. Its unique formula provides environmentally safe cathodic protection to steel comparable with hot dip galvanising, with the added advantage that it can be applied, on site, like a paint. We now do favour moisture curing urethane products from Trident coatings for example, and topcoats from Firwood. The Moisture Curing Urethanes work down to -15 degrees C and at high humidities. This allows on site painting to take place, outside in Winter!
A complex web of metal in an ex Aircraft Hangar in Warwickshire- cleaned and primed with MCU Aluprime Spring 2009.
Environmentally Friendly Chemical Paint Stripping
We specialise in using a low pressure sand jetting system that has been used nationwide for property restoration, including gaining approval for and subsequently working on many Listed Buildings. The system, in our trained hands, causes minimal damage to an underlying surface and is flexible enough to tackle most property restoration cleaning tasks. The low pressure sand jet can clean stone without injecting large quantities of water into the surface, and with minimal surface damage, at the same time, the ‘damp’ system also captures dirt and abrasive, preventing the health and safety risks associated with dry blasting. We would normally expect the sand jet systems to be around half the price of chemical stripping.
That being so, there are times when chemical paint stripping is needed. It can be considerably cleaner to use than abrasive cleaning, although generally the stripping solvents return paint to its liquid state, and therefore reintroduce the mess potential of paint. In general this is the technique to use for minimal surface damage. However as pressure washing is the most cost effective method for chemical and paint removal, some pointing etc. may be lost, more recently our Thermatec machine has provided a more gentle approach, which has worked well with projects in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Pressure Washing, rapid environmentally friendly cleaning.
We specialise in using a listed building approved low pressure sand jetting system used nationwide for property restoration. The system, in our trained hands, causes minimal damage to an underlying surface and is flexible enough to tackle most property restoration cleaning tasks.
That being so, there are times when pressure washing is an acceptable, environmentally friendly alternative. It is certainly cheaper rapid, and can be quite effective for surface contaminants such as algae and grime. Subsequent cleaning with the sand jet can remove stubborn stains. We have electric, petrol and diesel powered machines, and the big diesel machine will also generate high pressure hot water and steam. These cleaning techniques have been used effectively in projects in Lincoln and Derby.