Stainless Steel that has been pickled, and abrasive cleaning back to new

Business Challenge:

Even in our own manufacturing process there comes a time when we need to clean a part due to a failure or unique situation. Fortunately, we have test blast equipment at our disposal, for the use of our customers, prospects and an endless amount of cast zinc shot.

In this instance, we have a stainless steel “collar” we call it, that is used in our aluminum division that aids in pumping aluminum. This part can experience extreme wear and failures from time to time resulting in aluminum attaching to its internal threads. The aluminum from the Stainless Steel can be removed by utilizing “pickling”. Pickling is the process of using some sort of acid to dissolve or remove impurities (in this case) the aluminum from the Stainless Steel.

However, after doing so we are left with a part that is still unusable creating scale, that is until we blast with our Cast Zinc Shot.

Transmet Approach:

Utilizing our 36″ Goff table blaster and (RSZ) 850-ZA4 cast zinc shot, we blasted this collar for 5 minutes at 60hz throwing 144lbs of zinc per minute to see what it might accomplish.

Project Outcome:

The results were outstanding. The collar looks just at it did the day it was made with all scale removed, and threads untouched. We saved not only the part itself, but an abundance of time that would have gone into cleaning and repairing, which allowed us more time to focus on production and other improvements.