Wheelabrator has designed and manufactured “hybrid” airblast machines that use centrifugal wheels to process 80 to 90% of the surface area and then rely on a manipulating blast nozzle to “finish” the remaining 10%, which otherwise would not have been accessible to the blast wheel.

Wheelabrator’s Wheelblast® machines are used to clean or peen larger surface areas at high production rates. Several variations of work handling arrangements, such as monorail hangers, tables, tumbling barrels and roll conveyors, have been used to present the part to the blast wheels. In all these, the general theme is to clean the entire exposed surface. According to the company, this does work well, with some exceptions:

• When ID areas need to be processed
• When only a certain area of the part needs to be processed
• When masking a certain area is critical to avoid overspray
• When premium process control features have to be shared between wheel and airblast processes (particularly the volume of parts requiring airblast treatment isn’t very high)

To solve these problems, Wheelabrator has designed and manufactured “hybrid” machines that use centrifugal wheels to process 80 to 90% of the surface area and then rely on a manipulating blast nozzle to “finish” the remaining 10%, which otherwise would not have been accessible to the blast wheel. The company also has designed wheels to process the outside areas of the part and nozzle lance to process the ID of the same part.

For more information, visit www.wheelabratorgroup.com.