Which blast media do you use?

[Daniel Koster]

I've been using Silicon Carbide for a while and am exploring alternatives.

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Garnet, I haven't tried anything else but like it.

 

[Derek Bergstrom]

Ive been using glass media. it will not touch tool steel thats hardened so im switching to aluminum oxide. um, how does one switch abrasive blast media?

 

[Daniel Koster]

Silicon carbide is very "dusty" - low visibility in the cabinet.

DFK - how does Garnet compare?


Derek - you need a cabinet with a purge gate at the bottom. Or a good shop vac.

 

[Greebe]

I use AO 60 grit in my shop. It is fairly aggressive and I use it primarily for parkerizing. I have used it a few times on stainless knives to give them a matte finish. BTW It is a fairly expensive media. I need to get another cabinet with glass beads one of these day.

 

[Daniel Koster]

my experience with glass beads is that they take much more time/media blasting and don't put on a very good matte finish.

A/O is indeed very aggressive - for parkerizing..makes perfect sense (needs something to "grab" onto).

 

[chainring]

I'm using a barrel blaster with 80 grit garnet and it seems to be perfect for getting a nice matte finish on the tang before handles and giving my G10 and Micarta a nice grippy eroded finish. I have a shop vac hooked up to suck dust out of the cabinet, so if there IS dust then I'm sure not seeing it. I've only had the setup for the last few weeks, though, so if there is a down-side then I haven't discerned it yet.

 

[Derek Bergstrom]

so i used a good shop vac and switched to aluminum oxide, my immediate response was "HOLY RAPE this stuff eats tool steel for breakfast!" it took out some coarse blet sander scratches off of M4 at rc62 in seconds, my glass media barely got off 200 grit scratches off of annealed steel.