Vapor Honing Technologies and Acoustic Wiring - What Are the Differences?

Vaporizing stainless steel projects has become very popular due to its ability to seal the edges and corners leaving little or no room for corrosion and oxidation. Many times this is done using abrasive chemical agents that cause a chemical reaction causing the stainless steel to be liquefied before it is actually placed in the workpiece. Many of the best vapor honing stainless steel products are made from resins that have been formulated to resist any staining agent that may be used on the project. In many cases these products are much less expensive than some abrasive chemicals that are commonly used.

Wet blasting is also referred to as wet sludge blasting, steam honing, sludge jet, and wet foam cutting. The wet blasting process and any other wet blasting method use abrasive liquid along with water to form a slurry which is then utilized to create the final surface finish. Typically a wet blasting cabinet contains the following major units/systems. A chamber in the top of the unit which holds the abrasive that is to be used, an air handler that allows compressed air to be blown through the blower when necessary, the reservoir that holds the water, and a mixing valve that mixes the abrasives and the water. These units can all be operated using a single trigger.

Most of these vapor honing technologies have their own feeder and return systems to allow for easy maintenance. Some of the more complex units will have the ability to automatically feed abrasive and water as needed to make them extremely useful for precision machining parts washing. Most of the commercial vendors that utilize vapor blasting technology will feed two or more compartments with various sized abrasives in each compartment. This allows for parts washing with very fine parts that need the most fine detail being removed in the quickest amount of time.

The wet blasting and vapor blasting technologies are used in a wide variety of applications in the aerospace and defense arena. They can be applied to a wide array of non-ferrous or ferrous components. For example they can be used on many of the aluminum components used in high performance aircraft, such as the wings, landing gear, control surfaces, landing gear retracts and much more.

The application of vapor blasting and abrasive blasting technology has become popular in the hobby of turning plastic or rubber parts into precision machined pieces. For example a person might want to create a plate that will fit into a certain size slot in an RC aircraft. They would first take the required amount of plastic or rubber and heat it up so that it is pliable, then place the part into the slot and carefully tap the part back and forth into a place to get the right fit. They may even go so far as to drill into the plastic to create a nice even tap if it is not possible to use a drill press.

These applications and others like them require a tool that produces a smooth, permanent surface finish because the component will be moving around on its axis most of the time. A tool that features a long lifetime warranty and offers good cleaning properties is exactly what the equipment customer needs to make sure they are happy with their abrasive blasting equipment for years to come. If you own a device that features one of these two technologies, then you know you have made the right choice. Check out this post for more detailed information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrasive_blasting#Automated_blasting.