Design Nomenclature / Surface & Material
Bead-blasted finish
Also called bead blast, sandblasted, shot-blasted, media blast, matte blast
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
The uniform, non-directional matte produced by driving media against a surface at pressure, leaving randomly oriented micro-craters. Because the roughness has no lay, the highlight stays soft from every angle. Media size sets the grade; the process also cleans and slightly work-hardens what it hits.
Not to be confused with
- Brushed finishThe look of a directional abrasive pass: parallel micro-grooves that stretch the highlight across the lay and make the surface change brightness as you rotate it. Graded by grit, hairline being the fine end. It buries the fingerprints and machining marks a polish would put on display.
- MatteA surface that returns light almost entirely by diffuse scattering, so no image of the environment survives and brightness holds roughly steady as you move. Achieved by micro-roughening — blasting, flatting agents, a coarse sheet. Under 10 gloss units at 60° by common convention, though nobody agrees on the cut.
- Powder-coat finishThe appearance of an electrostatically applied polymer fused by heat into a film: thick, fully opaque, soft at the edges, and available in any color and any gloss level. It buries fine detail and rounds off crisp arrises — which is precisely why it hides a bad weld and ruins a sharp one.