They ran a story in our local paper yesterday about dry ice blasting. Had a picture of a Harley they had coated with polyurethane and blasted it off. Supposedly doesn't harm metal, electrical or rubber. Just thought it sounded interesting and wanted to pass it along if you hadn't seen it. Maybe someone's already posted about this and it's old news. I don't get out much.

http://www.cleanblasting.com/

http://herald-review.com/app/multime...dia_id=9718804

 

I saw that done on a home remodeling show. They used it to remove mold on the underside of the roof.

 

Westinghouse used it on one of our 100 Megawatt gas turbines back in the late 1990's. Worked fine. Didn't ask about the cost.....it was some warranty work. But it wasn't cheap.

Larry

 

Now if they could make it cost effective for us poor guys.

 

We used it for cleaning foam molds for OEM automotive seating. It was by far the most cost effective way to do that job, with virtually no damage to the tools. And there was no media to clean up, just what ever came off the tools (wax and polyurethane).

Harry

 

That's what I was wondering Larry. The article mentioned they rent out the machine and equipment but didn't mention cost. You wonder also ifit would do a good job on 40-50 year old greasy grime build up.

 

Has anyone done anymore research on this or has anyone used this type of service?

 

I am in the mold remediation business and have contacted one of the few companies that make the equipment. We were thinking of buying a machine but it is $$$. If I remember, the model I was thinking of was around 50k and needed a whopper of a compressor to run it. They are letting me try one in the near future when they have a conference here in LA. They are the ones using the Harley for demos. It is very impressive.
I did ask about my vette and they said it was no problem. Dont want to be the first to try this though.

Harry

 

Roger Houston & Sons Sandblasting in Harrison Ohio has a CO2 pellet blasting settup mounted on a semi trailer. They primarily work in the utility industry too, doing steam and gas turbine blasting. They are local to me, the rig is expensive to run, but I would love to try it. I have a friend that did a 57 Chevy metal car and it turned out awesome. No mess or residual cleanup other than the paint chips that are removed. The company is owned by Roger's son Jeff who also owns a 69 Corvette.

 

Here at Nasa we used a similar system but I don't think we had that much pressure or as many solid pieces of ice. Not enough to cut foam. We used it to clean mirrors. You can not touch a mirror that has a thin film coating on it. So it's used to remove dust and light contamination.

 

Has anyone checked in with the Global Warming For Lunch Bunch on this? Dry ice for the great unwashed out there is frozen CO2 or carbon dioxide.

 

I had my '66 eggcrate grill blasted and it work well but took a while to clean off the old paint. Also it makes the metal cold and it will sweat after you're done. Likely to surface rust on steel. Never seen fiberglass blasted with it.