Metal components must be Deburred, Cleaned & Finished, before affixing them into any of the bigger mechanism. These metal components may be the sand castings, forgings, aluminium die castings, zinc die castings, brass & gun metal parts, sheet metal or tempered components.
In the earlier days, people used the Tumbling barrels, loaded with leather particles ( even now being used at many places ) for cleaning & finishing of metal parts. Later the Vibratory finishing machines, Centrifugal finishing machines, Drag finishing machines as well the Roll Flow finishing machines came into operation. Various types of ceramic stones, plastic stones, stainless steel media, walnut shells, glass beads are used in this type of machines for deburring & polishing of metal components.
Similarly, Rotary barrel shot blasting machines came into existence in the earlier days for abrasive blasting on metal parts for cleaning & finishing. Later the horizontal model of Shot Blasting machines came into action such as Tumblast shot blasting, Table shot blasting, Hanger shot blasting & the continuous conveyor shot blasting machines. These machines have a centrifugal blasting rotor that rotates mechanically, whie throwing steel balls, normally called shots or grits, on the components for the finishing.
Sand blasting machines are also available in portable models as well the cabinet models. The cabinet model of sand blasting machines include various models such as pressure blasting, suction blasting as well the wet blasting machines. These machines can be used to clean & finish any specific area of a metal component also. Sand blasting nozzles of boron carbide & tungsten carbide are used in these machines & these are operated by the air pressure provided by a compressor. Sand blasting as well glass etching is also being done now a days on glass, by using these sand blasting machines. Various types of abrasive medias such as aluminium oxide, glass beads, river sand, shots, grits, plastic abrasive, garnet etc can be used in these machines.
The latest in surface finishing machines include the Thermal deburring machines, Electro chemical deburring machines, Dry ice blast cleaning machines, Micro sand blasting machines & a lot more. More details can be viewed in the Directory of Finishing machines which offers a wide range of machines as above.