Efficient Blasting Materials and Professional Blasting Equipment for Car Services and Workshops

The year 1989 meant for Romania the turning point in which one dictatorship was replaced by a less visible one – the fall of the communism paved the way for capitalism which is based on the principles of competition and a free market economy, but also, on a less visible money dictatorship. The communist party’ policy on poverty as a mass social system was replaced by the free will of the people, who pursued welfare and comfort, almost non-existent for such a long time, during the Ceausescu era.

Three decades of transition have meant fundamental changes in all industries in Romania, the automotive industry being one of the fastest growing sectors. According to the Romanian National Institute of Statistics, in the last 30 years, the number of cars in Romania has increased more than 5 times, considering both the cars manufactured in Romania, and the cars imported from abroad, many of these cars being used for personal purpose, and a more significant number for transportation, relocation and logistic services: taxi fleet cars, vans, minivans, buses, trucks – considering also the impact of the logistic and transportation companies that effectively moved their entire fleet in Romania.

Without any doubts, we can say that the streets were literally flooded with cars. But an increase in one industry creates the premises for many other up and down trends in other sectors of the economy, which acts almost like a living organism that continuously self-regulates. Therefore, the following niche that experienced a rapid grow in the post-December Romanian economy included the car services and workshops. Such a large number of cars required multiple repair and maintenance operations, and they had to be carried out as soon as possible, not to create any delays in other activity sectors.

Therefore, the wire brush and sandpaper that were largely used for preparing car rims and car chassis were replaced with more efficient and faster blasting solutions. Abrasive blasting is the operation of forcibly propelling a stream of abrasive material against a surface under high pressure to smooth a rough surface, shape a surface, or remove surface contaminants, using either compressed air (in case of dry abrasive blasting) or water (in case of wet abrasive blasting). Abrasive blasting has many applications in automotive industry, being the first operation to be performed for preparing metallic surfaces for further anti-corrosive coatings, like priming or painting auto chassis, or cleaning and degreasing motor parts, car rims, motor parts, turbochargers. At first, when there was not much information available in the field, very common abrasive materials such as quartz sand were used for sandblasting operations, which proved to be over time, a very bad choice as the quartz sand is a very toxic material that can lead to silicosis, a serious life-threatening condition that affect blasting operators. Once again, like in many other fields, cheap turns out to be expensive, even tragical when workers get injured or lose their lives.

Considering the new technologies in the field and the catalytic power of marketing competition, the abrasive blasting has now gained new horizons of development that allow manufacturing of enhanced abrasive materials, blasting equipment and blasting protective equipment with a small negative impact on humans and environment, which is transposed by using of ecological and non-toxic abrasive materials, and designing of recycling abrasive equipment and low-dust vacuum cleaners.

Here, at GritSablare, we welcome those who are passionate by truly professional things in abrasive blasting, and we offer a full catalogue of blasting agents and special designed blasting equipment for car services and workshops:

1.  Reusable blasting media, ecological and non-toxic, with less than 0.1% of free silica content in the respirable air, for using with indoor blasting cabinets and blasting rooms: (a) premium steel grit, Chromium alloyed, with more than 1100 reusable cycles, according to Erwin Test Machine; (b) premium steel shots, Chromium alloyed, with more than 3000 reusable cycles according to Erwin Test Machine for shot peening metal parts; (c) stainless steel grit and stainless steel shots, with more than 800 reusable cycles, special designed for blasting and shot peening surfaces that do not allow any ferrous contamination. Further, we provide ecologic and non-toxic red garnet and copper slag for outdoor blasting.
2.  Blasting cabinets with removable rotative plates, for blasting car rims and heavy parts. These plates allow rotating the working piece during blasting operation, so there are no remaining uncleaned areas in the end. Further, these rotative plates can be removed from the blasting cabinet via the side door, allowing easy manipulation of heavy working parts and direct access for working cranes and lifting equipment.
3.  Special designed equipment for recovering and recycling blasting waste: (a) Pow Air Vac Heavy Duty Vacuum Cleaner by GritSablare which cleans up to 1000 kilos of blasting waste per hour using vacuum cleaner technology powered by compressed air, with no electrical power required; (b) ProFlo Abrasive Recycling System by GritSablare for outdoor blasting installations, which recycle up to 3000 kilos of red garnet blasting waste per hour, maintaining the efficiency of the agent during the entire blasting operation, by keeping it free of dust and debris.
4.  Equipment for dust-free indoor and outdoor blasting operations: AER215 Nuovo Closed Circuit Vacuum Blaster by GritSablare, recommended for cleaning car chassis parts, with a multi-cyclone unit used for screening and cleaning blasting agent during operation.
5.  Blasting compressors: competitive oil lubricated compressor series VARIABLE XP. Features of this series: Compact design, • Variable speed drive, • Full sound proof enclosure, • In-house airends. Advantages: • Small footprint, • Compressed air on demand, • Improved noise level, • Proven and tested. Benefits: • Easy and space saving installation, • Energy efficient, cost saving operation, • Safe operation environment, • High reliability, long lifetime, • Easy to use system.
6.  Blasting protective equipment: blasting helmets, blasting suits, leather or rubber gloves, and blasting accessories: fresh-air purificators, helmet air heating, sound absorbers for increasing operators’ comfort during blasting operations.

The mirage of cars accompanies us with passion, like it accompanies also a kid that plays with his favourite car toy and dreams of the rides he will take with his real car when he grows up… here, at GritSablare, we may have lost the start in automotive industry, but we certainly haven’t missed the start on blasting, because we are thrilled of what we do, and because we want to remain a reference in this field. We continuously transpose our passion in the business relationships that we developed in time with our partners, who always find with us the best blasting solutions for blasting agents and blasting equipment, either it’s about a car rim cleaning operation, or a vintage car restauration project.