Bead blasting, shot blasting, grit blasting, sand blasting and vapour blasting are just some of the terms that customers use when describing what wet blasting process they have.

While these are all accurate enough it is important to understand the type of abrasive blast media that will be used in the process as this will have a very large affect on the wet blast process and ultimately finish.

Vapormatt has redesigned its high performance wet blasting system, the Jaguar, to further enhance performance.

With the August bank holiday looking to be perfect for boating and with very few points between the leaders it was set to be a good weekend for Nosferatu,  the Vapormatt sponsored powerboat; and, having had several podium positions throughout the season Nosferatu was in the favourite spot to pick up some championship medals.

Wet blasting is a highly effective process that combines compressed air, abrasive media and water in a slurry form to clean and prepare surfaces.  The water creates a lubricating effect which increases the flow of particles across the surface being treated.

The Vapormatt Tiger+ processing centre - a fully automatic, in-line wet blasting, cleaning and drying system - saves time and money for users by combining several processes in one automated unit.  Vapormatt’s Tiger+ Processing Centre uses sophisticated process control and monitoring to deliver exceptional performance, helping manufacturers of cutting inserts to improve productivity and quality.

A lot of the time we hear how critical a die's success rate is for aluminium extrusion and being able to improve this becomes a key objective for those involved with die correction.

After all if your die is expected to provide kilometres of profiles then a small percentage decrease can make a big difference. However, despite die maintenance being regarded as a tedious process it is critical to ensure minimal downtime on your lines.

The weekend saw 11 boats vying for podium positions as the racing season reaches its penultimate weekend. With adrenaline levels at their usual high levels the competition was fierce amongst the boats making the spectator friendly North Beach course and added bonus for those watching. 

CVD coatings are applied at considerably high temperatures, normally between 925-1075 degrees centigrade. With the amount of energy that is required to apply the coatings can make failure at this stage an expensive mistake to correct.

With the nature of high temperature coatings, when applied to a cemented carbide surface, the process can create cooling cracks and particularly high tensile stresses; caused by the difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion between the two.

On show for the first time at this year’s EMO exhibition is the latest wet blast innovation from Vapormatt, which will help tooling manufacturers improve productivity still further.  

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