The authoritative public forum
  for Metal Finishing since 1989
  

  -----

Carbon dioxide pellet blasting for aerospace components

Seeking info on carbon dioxide pellet blasting. What, Where, When, How and Who.

Pete Bagley
- Reno. Nv.
1998

---

Pete,

I don't know about CO2 pellets but CO2 snow is used to clean surfaces. There are several suppliers of CO2 snow cleaning equipment.

Donald M. Mattox
Society of Vacuum Coaters
Albuquerque, New Mexico 1998

This process is being extensively tested and evaluated by several DoD facilities for paint removal.

Mandar Sunthankar
- Fort Collins, Colorado
1998

We have been using CO2 pellet blasting to clean aerospace parts since Nov 87. Typical uses include removal of: RTV sealants, gasket materials, adhesive residues, hot section coking deposits, light oxidation, and DEGRADED paint residues. Note that I said degraded paint. In general, CO2 is not a very good paint stripper (unless the coating has been degraded in service, by a paint stripper of some kind, or by some other more exotic method such as flash-blasting w/ high powered strobe lights). That said, we have on occasion used it to strip paint from highly critical parts where there was no alternative and the long blast time could be justified.

Mike Patry
Okla. City Air Logistics Ctr. - Tinker AFB, OK
1998

I am interested in finding out more information on CO2 stripping.

Tom O'Berry
- Jacksonville, Florida
1999