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Abrasive blast finishing at inflpanjlott.com

Blasting looks simple and is not. Push media too hard and you round an edge the drawing depends on. Use the wrong media on aluminium and you contaminate the surface with iron, which then rusts a week later in your customer's yard. What follows is how inflpanjlott.com picks the media, prepares the part and prices a batch by area rather than by weight.

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Inside an abrasive blasting cabinet with a light beam and a steel part being blasted to a uniform matte finish

Problem to solution

Scale, heat tint and paint that has to go

A fabricator came in with welded frames that had been shot with old mill scale. The welds looked fine from a metre away and the paint had been applied anyway, which is a slow way to build a problem. Under the coating the scale was lifting, and every time the frame flexed in service, the crack grew.

We blasted them back to clean metal, removed the paint chemically first so the media would not smear it deeper, and left a uniform matte surface that the powder coat actually bonded to. The frames went back into service the same week. inflpanjlott.com now runs that prep step for them on every new weldment, which is cheaper than repainting a failed frame and much cheaper than the replacement.

The second common case is architectural stainless. A fabricator wants a consistent fine satin across a whole railing panel so it does not read as a patchwork of hand-polished pieces. That is a blasting job with a fine non-metallic media, and the reason every panel matches is the same: one media, one pressure, one distance, logged per lot.

Steel and alloy framesScale, rust and weld spatter removal with a matte or coarse satin result.

Aluminium and stainlessNon-metallic media only, so no iron contamination and no delayed rust spotting.

Prep for coatingA uniform blasted surface gives powder and paint something to anchor to that is far stronger than mill scale.

Media, pressure, distance, angle

Four variables decide a blasted surface, and inflpanjlott.com logs all four for every lot so a repeat order matches. Pressure sets how deep the media cuts. Distance and angle set how much of that cutting energy reaches the surface rather than bouncing off. Media choice sets whether you are removing scale, shaping a texture or cleaning a coating.

A typical prep job on carbon steel runs around 60 mesh glass bead at roughly 4 bar, held at a consistent standoff. Stainless architectural work uses a fine glass or ceramic media for the satin finish. Aluminium uses non-metallic media, always — this is the one rule we never bend, because a single contaminated aluminium part that rusts in a customer's yard costs far more than the time saved.

Large frames go on the robotic cell, which keeps the pattern consistent across a twelve-metre structure. Hand cabinet work is better for small or delicate pieces where a robot head would be overkill.

See the whole route

Two steel weld samples side by side, one with rough mill scale and one with a uniform blasted grey finish — Before and after on the same weld sample. The difference is not cosmetic — one takes coating, the other makes it peel.

A robotic abrasive blasting head working on a large fabricated steel frame in a robotic finishing cell — The robotic cell keeps a large frame consistent from end to end, which is what makes a matched architectural panel possible.

Price and timing

Blasting is priced by area

Blasting consumes media and time in proportion to surface area, so that is how inflpanjlott.com quotes it. Weight barely matters — a heavy fabricated frame with a modest surface can cost less than a small part with a complex, hard-to-reach geometry.

$6 – $28 per ft²Typical range, depending on media, pressure and how much paint has to come off

2 – 3 working daysStandard turnaround, longer where chemical stripping is needed first

Masked areasQuoted separately after we look at the drawing, since masking is often the hard part

Send the area and material

Blasting questions

It can, if the pressure is wrong. Sharp edges, thin webs and close-tolerance bores are where media does damage. inflpanjlott.com masks those areas and reduces pressure deliberately rather than blasting the whole part at one setting.

Yes — with non-metallic media only, and a cabinet that is not used for steel without a full clean between jobs. Cross-contamination is the real risk on aluminium, and it shows up as rust spots days later, not on the bench.

Usually yes, chemically, and then we blast the residue. Blasting thick paint directly drives it into the metal and can undercut welds. inflpanjlott.com will tell you which route your part needs once we see the coating thickness.

Up to roughly twelve metres on the robotic cell, and larger pieces in sections where the pattern is logged so it still matches across the joints. Anything that can be lifted safely into a cabinet we can process.

Yes, with masking. Masked-out surfaces are protected and the boundary between blasted and masked areas is kept straight and consistent, which matters more on architectural work than people expect.

Blast, then coat, in one route

Most of our blasting customers are coating the part next. inflpanjlott.com can run both so nothing sits on a shelf between the two steps.

See powder coating Ask about a combined route