When to Use Glass Bead Abrasive

Sometimes people get confused between glass beads and crushed glass, but they are two different abrasive media. The shape and the size of two of them are different. The glass beads can be used for soft surfaces without causing damages on them. This article will talk about glass beads in detail.

What is Glass Bead?

Glass bead is made from soda-lime, and it is one of the effective abrasives people like to use for surface preparing. The hardness for glass bead is around 5-6. And the working speed for glass bead is medium fast. It is commonly used in a blast cabinet or reclaimable type of blast operation.

Application:

Since glass bead is not as aggressive as some other media, and it chemically inset. It is commonly used for metals like stainless steel. Glass beads can help finish surfaces without changing the dimension of the surface. The common application for glass beads are: deburring, peening, polishing materials like cast iron and stainless steel.

Advantage:

l  Silica free: The good thing about silica free means it will not bring breath hazard to operators.

l  Environmentally friendly

l  Recyclable: If the glass bead is used under appropriate pressure, it can even be recycled several times.

Disadvantage:

Since the hardness for glass bead is not as high as other abrasive media, using glass bead to blast a tough surface will take longer time than others. In addition, glass bead will not do any etch to the tough surface.

To sum up, glass beads are good for metals and other soft surfaces. However, glass bead is just one part of abrasive blasting process. Before abrasive blasting, people still need to consider the size of the bead, specific workpiece shape, the distance of the blast nozzle, air pressure and the type of blasting system.