Forge & Foundry, Shot Blasting

Forge & Foundry, Part 5 – Cleaning Features & Dust Precautions for Sand Castings

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Our Forge and Foundry Series continues with a look at the cleaning required for sand castings and the collection of removed contaminants.  

Rosler Metal Finishing builds shot blasting machines that are equipped to prepare the surface of sand castings as well as collect removed contaminants for a consistent workpiece finish and the health of the utilized machine and personnel.

What design features must be considered in blast turbines used for the cleaning of sand castings?

Baked-on molding sand, sand cores, and scale/rust on the sand castings are difficult to remove and require turbines with a lot of fire power. Turbines with curved throwing blades, such as Rosler’s Gamma G series, have proven to be exceptionally effective since, compared to straight-bladed turbines, the curvature of the blades generates up to 25 percent higher throwing speeds!

Continue reading Forge & Foundry, Part 5 – Cleaning Features & Dust Precautions for Sand Castings →
joint reconstruction implants, Mass Finishing, Shot Blasting

Joint Reconstruction, Part 2 – Material Standards

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Joint reconstruction implants allow millions of individuals to regain mobility and reduce pain. Just as surgical skill is required to implant these artificial joints, so is skillful construction and finish of the joint components themselves.

A leader in surface finishing for medical technology, Rosler Metal Finishing has extensive experience in shot blasting and mass finishing a wide range of medical devices from instruments to implants used specifically for joint replacement.

Our Joint Reconstruction Series continues with an overview of the most common materials used for these endoprosthetic implants.

Material Standards

The most common materials used for joint reconstruction implants are currently titanium and titanium alloys and cobalt-chromium alloys. Both materials are very tough, corrosion-resistant, highly biocompatible, and have proven themselves to be absolutely reliable.

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Forge & Foundry, Shot Blasting

Forge & Foundry, Part 4 – Selecting a Shot Blast Machine for Sand Castings

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Building upon the information shared in our last Forge and Foundry Series post about sand casting, we now turn to the process of selecting and designing machines to specific sand casting operations.

Selecting the right shot blasting machine for your process and work piece means understanding how the work pieces and machine will interact. Here are common questions Rosler Metal Finishing receives when developing perfectly specified solutions for sand casting.

How do work piece delicacy, size, and weight influence the machine choice?

Before choosing a machine, the following questions must be asked:

  • Are the parts sturdy, allowing for aggressive processing, or must they be handled gently, without any part-on-part contact?
  • Is batch processing possible or must it be continuous?
  • Which work piece handling system is best: rotary drum, troughed belt, wire mesh belt, overhead monorail system, or heavy-duty crane or trolley on rails for extremely heavy work pieces weighing several tons?
  • Can the work pieces be handled by robot or is a custom-engineered shot blast system the best solution?

It is extremely important to find a supplier that can offer a machine that is perfectly matched to the work piece characteristics.

Continue reading Forge & Foundry, Part 4 – Selecting a Shot Blast Machine for Sand Castings →
joint reconstruction implants, medical

Joint Reconstruction, Part 1 – Expertise for Endoprosthetics

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With more than $18 billion in annual worldwide sales, implants for joint reconstruction make up nearly 40 percent of all orthopedic product sales. More active lifestyles and increased life expectation continue to contribute to the rapid growth of this market segment.

Thanks to significant advancements on the material side and enhanced surface finishing technologies, artificial hips and knees can last more than 20 years before they must be replaced. Rosler Metal Finishing’s shot blasting and mass finishing capabilities are examples of processes and equipment that have and continue to evolve to accommodate the demand for increased endoprosthetics which are also known as orthopedic joint reconstruction implants.

These techniques play a key role in intermediate processing steps including cleaning, deburring/edge radiusing, surface smoothing, and surface preparation for coatings after casting, forging, machining, CNC grinding as well as placing the final finish on the implants before they are inserted.

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Forge & Foundry

Forge & Foundry, Part 3 – Shot Blasting & Sand Castings

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Our Forge and Foundry Series continues with a deeper look at sand castings. While more than 60 percent of all metal castings are made with a sand casting process, the specific shot blasting machines used to remove surface contaminants vary. Rosler Metal Finishing is uniquely qualified to identify the right shot blasting machine for your process and can help determine what settings and media will produce the best results with every cycle.

Sand Casting Basics

Sand casting, also known as sand molded casting, is a metal casting process using different kinds of sand as mold material. The sand is usually “glued” together with a bonding agent like clay, water, oil, resin, or sodium silicate.

A sand mold consists of two or more sections. Liquid metal is poured into the cavities formed by the mold.

Once cooled, sand molds pass through a shakeout device, where they are destroyed to extract the metal castings. The raw castings then undergo a fettling procedure, where sprews, gates, runners, and risers are separated, and coarse burs are removed.

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Structural Steel

Structural Steel FAQ, Part 12 – Material Handling Options

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Imagine the ability to clean, shot peen, and paint I-beams for commercial construction, without having to move the heavy and bulky piece manually. The most well-equipped preservation line would be much less useful without adequate material handling systems.

That’s why Rosler Metal Finishing builds material handling systems into preservation lines to accommodate a wide range of structural steel components before and after the surface finishing process.

This installment of the Structural Steel FAQ Series will answer What types of material handling systems are available for shot blasting and painting structural steel components?

The most common methods of handling systems are roller conveyors and overhead rails. More specialized options also exist.

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Forge & Foundry

Forge & Foundry, Part 2 – Efficient Recycling

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When a casting is produced, by-products are generated. Small pieces originating from spills, gates, runners, and risers are returned to the casting process as recycling material. To ensure a consistently high overall quality of the raw material, it is essential that this recycling material is perfectly clean without any sand, casting shell, or other residues on the surface.

Subjecting these by-products to a blast cleaning process from Rosler Metal Finishing before they are re-melted offers many advantages. Besides the resource-saving use of raw materials, the effective cleaning of the recycling material increases the uptime of the smelting furnaces by significantly reducing the amount of unwanted slag.

Components made from steel, nodular cast iron, and grey iron can be processed by mass finishing equipment.

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Structural Steel

Structural Steel FAQ, Part 11 – Preservation Lines

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Structural steel components are prone to rust quickly and fail with potentially catastrophic consequences if not covered with a suitable, protective coating.

In preparing for use in construction, shipbuilding, and the production of all kinds of heavy duty vehicles, trucks, railway vehicles, agricultural implements or construction equipment, it is important to apply proper surface finishing processes to these components for safety and longevity.

Offering painting and shot blasting in a single source, preservation lines are a great option for structural steel components including steel plates, beams, round bar stock, and tubes.

In this installment of our Structural Steel FAQ Series, Rosler Metal Finishing will answer What are the key components of a preservation line?

Continue reading Structural Steel FAQ, Part 11 – Preservation Lines →
Forge & Foundry, Mass Finishing, Shot Blasting

Forge & Foundry, Part 1 – Shot Blasting Systems

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Getting castings and forgings ready for the subsequent processing steps presents some of the toughest surface finishing challenges. Shot blasting machines can handle all of these tasks from removing residual sand, casting shells, flashing, die marks, or scale. Whether cast iron, steel, stainless steel, super alloys, titanium, aluminum, zinc, or magnesium, the comprehensive portfolio of Rosler Metal Finishing blasting systems for the foundry industry enables the optimal process for any requirement.

Shot blasting is an essential part of most forge and foundry operations and has been used since the late 1800s. This specialized surface finishing process throws small metal (or mineral) pellets, called blast media, onto the surface of a work piece at incredibly high speeds, ranging from 200-800 feet per second. The impact on the work pieces from this process is what blasts the contaminants from the parts and produces the desired surface finishing effect.

When properly applied prior to finishing, blasting achieves three key aspects of the finishing process:

  1. Cleans and descales surfaces
  2. Creates a uniform texture on the part and blends the surface
  3. Enhances paint adhesion
Continue reading Forge & Foundry, Part 1 – Shot Blasting Systems →
Shot Blasting, Structural Steel

Structural Steel FAQ, Part 10 – Blast Rooms for Touch-Ups

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When it comes to shot blasting complex weldments like the chassis for construction equipment, excavator booms, and wind power components, sometimes even the best turbine placement may not clean all the nooks and crannies of the work piece’s surface.

Surface finishing experts such as Rosler Metal Finishing have solved this issue with the addition of manual blast rooms to automatic shot blast systems.

This installment of our Structural Steel FAQ series will answer When are blast rooms behind turbine blast machines required for manual touch-up?

Continue reading Structural Steel FAQ, Part 10 – Blast Rooms for Touch-Ups →

Shot Blasting and Mass Finishing Surface Finishing Experts

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