Reduce Blasting Reject Rate on Remanufactured Parts

Business Challenge

Steel shot, glass bead, and mineral abrasives are the most commonly used blast media in various remanufacturing operations. They are all readily available, but can be too aggressive for many remanufacturing activities.

Parts are remanufactured to return to like-new OEM surface finish. Remanufacturing companies sometimes struggle to reach OEM appearance and fail to clean old paint and residue from cores. Remanufacturing companies may also damage surfaces that have been machined for mating, threaded, and numbered for identification when using aggressive blast media.

Transmet Approach

Conventional practice in shot blasting and peening is to use a media similar in hardness to the substrate. In remanufacturing, the cores have been blasted at the OEM to remove flash and burrs from the manufacturing process.

Transmet Cast Shot products are softer than more commonly used media and in many cases will match the hardness of the OEM parts.

Project Outcome

After switching to Transmet Cast Shot, a large heavy equipment remanufacturer was able to significantly lower the number of rejected parts from over-blasting.

The remanufacturing company also noted:

• Significant reduction in volume of dust around plant
• Subsequent reduction in volume of dust to dispose of
• Reduction in shot inventory and purchases
• Virtually eliminated wear on blast equipment