Why the Puma XL earns its place in an aerospace MRO wheel and brake shop.
A large European MRO organisation was taking 120 minutes per wheel to strip A350 inner wheel halves, using chemical pre-treatment followed by dry blasting.
We ran the same wheel on a Vapormatt Puma XL in WASP configuration, our Water Assisted Stripping Process, following Safran SPM 32-09-01 in full. It stripped in 58 minutes with no chemical pre-treatment, and the anodised layer came through intact. A 52% cycle time reduction, on a documented customer trial. Note: anodising does not conduct electricity, so a continuity check across the wheel would have closed a circuit anywhere the blast had broken through to bare aluminium. No continuity was found.
The reason is the wet blasting process itself. Plastic media is suspended in a slurry of hot water and mild detergent, so oils, grease, brake dust and carbon come off at the same time as the paint. One pass, with no separate pre-clean stage and no drying stage between operations. The wheel leaves the cabinet ready for non-destructive testing (NDT), whether that is eddy current or dye penetrant inspection, or for direct repainting.
The machine suits the components. The 1,100mm stainless steel turntable swings halfway out of the cabinet for loading, so wheel hubs up to 30 inches in diameter go in without difficulty. Fitted with the optional plastic media processing kit, the Puma XL runs media conforming to MIL-DTL-85891, the specification referenced in MIL-STD-1504D for organic coating removal from military aircraft components.
There's also no airborne dust. Where chromate or epoxy primers are present, that matters more every year as regulation around abrasive blasting tightens.
We've supplied aerospace wheel and brake shops with wet blasting equipment since 1978, including some of the world's largest air forces. Send us an aircraft wheel and the specification you work to. We will run it at our UK test facility and return documented results before you commit to anything.
