Princess Anne visited Barracuda Live at the Fleet Air Arm Museum earlier this month. It’s a fascinating project to save the only Second World War Fairey Barracuda from extinction.

The team at the Museum are painstakingly rebuilding the torpedo dive bomber from parts salvaged from various crash sites across the UK.

Coatings like PVD typically have an incumbent tensile stress that can lead to fatigue cracks - reducing the durability of the coating.

Wet blasting can be used to peen coatings, converting tensile stresses into compressive stresses - dramatically improve the durability of the coating and the life of the tool, especially in demanding applications.

Wet blasting after coating removes coating imperfections, like PVD coating droplets, to leave a uniform surface with an optimum Ra surface roughness for the cutting operation required from the tool.

And here’s a bit more detail on how our world leading wet blasting technology achieves the perfect coating finish...

A precise edge hone allows a round shank tool to generate an ideal 'chip' with an optimum depth and curl, resulting in longer tool life and a better finish.

Chip evacuation: The improved edge geometry facilitates better chip flow, reducing the chances of chip re-cutting and clogging, which can lead to heat build-up and tool failure. Efficient chip evacuation is critical for producing clean and consistent chips that are easy to remove from the cutting zone.

A measure of tool quality is the durability of its cutting edge. In the same way a highly sharpened pencil is prone to snapping, a tool’s cutting edge when highly sharpened can be easily chipped and damaged.

The solution is to apply a specific edge hone (or rounded edge) that helps prevent the cutting edge from being damaged by chipping or curling and that also allows the tool to run at full production speed from new.

Our automatic Tiger wet blasting machine has long established itself as the gold standard for insert finishing, but what exactly can it do?

• Deburring and cleaning
• Edge honing
• Application of a specific K-Factor
• Surface preparation for coating
• Residual stress relief
• Post-coating finishing
• Post-coating peening
• Selective coating removal
• Application of an aesthetic finish

With so many possible applications it’s little wonder the Tiger is the go-to finishing solution for insert manufacturers worldwide.

Advantages of high-quality blades:

• Precision cutting
• Smooth surface finish
• Extended blade life
• Reduced material waste
• Faster cutting speeds
• Lower energy consumption
• Less downtime
• Versatility
• Reduced vibration
• Consistency
• Minimised heat generation
• Safter operation

How wet blasting can help produce them:

Wet blasting cleans steel wire leaving a uniform surface that is entirely free from graphite, oxides, scale and other contaminants in preparation for forming, machining and heat treatment.

Clean and uniform steel wire is a better conductor, more resistant to corrosion, stronger and safer.

High quality aluminium wire needs to be clean and free from imperfections. Wet blasting cleans the surface removing all contaminants and oxides, leaving feeder wire perfectly clean for extrusion.

It also produces a smoother surface finish by cushioning the impact of the abrasive particles with water. This reduces the risk of surface damage and results in a more uniform finish free from imperfections and that is better for extrusion because…

Power cable needs to transmit electricity over large distances as efficiently as possible to help reduce running costs.

And cables operating at lower temperatures transmit power more efficiently because a cooler cable has lower resistance.

The non-specular finish created by wet blasting power cable increases emissivity to approx. 0.8 - untreated cable is approx. 0.5.