Cleaning Carbon, Rust, Paint from Bearing Components

The Background

A remanufacturer of mild steel bearing components needed to remove carbon buildup, rust, and old paint from their components. The company had already attempted to use carbon steel shot and soft steel shot in the range of 12 Rc without success. Their challenge is cleaning the components without profiling or removing metal.

Transmet Approach

Transmet first developed a process for these bearing components in-house. The company sent parts to test in Transmet’s in-house support lab. By testing different sizes of shot at different cycle times, Transmet was able to determine the right process for the components.

After determining the shot size that best removed the carbon buildup, rust, and old paint from the parts, Transmet began testing for the cycle time that would avoid profiling or removing metal.

With the data from in-house testing, Transmet assisted the remanufacturer in setting up the cleaning process at their facility.

Project Outcome

Implementing Cast Zinc Shot reduced scrap rate and improved throughput of the wheel assemblies at the remanufacturing company. An additional benefit was the blast acting as a temporary corrosion inhibitor and avoiding additional rust-preventative steps.

A manager commented, “Using Cast Zinc Shot we accomplished our cleaning objective while reducing scrap by more than 30%.”