Design Nomenclature / Physical Model Making

Abrasive blasting

Also called blasting, bead blasting, grit blasting, sandblasting

This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.

Driving media against a surface with compressed air. The media decides the result far more than the pressure does: angular grit cuts and leaves a matte tooth for coating, glass bead peens and leaves a soft uniform matte, walnut shell and soda strip without touching the substrate under them.

Four panels left to right, numbered, each a small section with the step named beneath it. Round beads above a surface left in a shallow, even sawtooth; angular grit, drawn as triangles, above a sawtooth cut visibly deeper and sharper; soft round media above a surface whose line stays flat and unbroken; and three trays of media graded coarse to fine, the beads in each drawn smaller and fewer than the last.

In practice

"Sandblasting" names a media nobody has used in decades — silica sand causes silicosis. Because the finish has no lay, it hides everything a brushed finish would show, and shows every dent a brushed finish would hide: blasting is not a way to fix a bad surface.

Not to be confused with

How this term connects

Abrasive finishingAnodizingBead-blasted finishMattePowder coatingRoughnessAbrasive blasting
Related Confused with