Glass Beading/Bead Blasting

Glass Beading – also known as Bead Blasting – is similar to sandblasting except that it employs glass beads. The process does not typically remove material, but provides a much smoother and brighter finish than angular abrasives. In general, it will blend and smooth machine marks, and so the process works best on exterior features and large pockets.

Glass beads are manufactured from lead-free glass containing no free silica and are made into pre-formed ball shapes.

Glass bead blasting produces a clean, bright satin finish without dimensional change of the parts and is ideally used for honing, polishing and removing light foreign matter.

Photo of our bead bay

Peening with glass bead abrasive material gives the balance of stress relief without overstressing and causing damage.

Our Glass Beading capacity for stainless steel, aluminium, brass, copper, monel and inconel will facilitate components and assemblies 40' in length and 10' in diameter to a maximum of 12 tons in weight.