Sandblasting vs Water Blasting: Which One Do I Need?

Time for a new paint job on your facility’s structures or equipment? You’ve come to the right place. And you’ve narrowed your surface preparation choices down to the right two.

Surface preparation is an, if not the most, important ingredient in ensuring high-quality, durable, and long-lasting paint jobs. It removes dust, dirt, and greasy substances to allow for thorough adhesion to the substrate.

Water blasting and sandblasting are two of the most effective surface preparation methods. However, they differ slightly, and these differences may influence your choice as to which is best suited to your needs.

Let’s take a closer look!

SANDBLASTING

Sandblasting services is one of the fastest, most reliable ways to prepare difficult surfaces for painting. It’s often used to roughen up smooth surfaces or smooth out rough surfaces.

Although most commonly used to change the shape and texture of surfaces like metal, it can also remove dust, dirt, debris, contaminants, and old paint from other surfaces safely and successfully.

It’s benefits include:

Easier, faster, more efficient way to clean and prepare different surfaces for painting
Intensity is easily adjusted to allow for a wide variety of uses (such as light cleaning, shaping, roughening, and smoothing).
More powerful, efficient, and effective than sandpapering, ensuring preparation is complete in hours – rather than days!

WATER BLASTING

Water blasting is an incredibly efficient, cost-effective, safe, and environmentally-friendly surface preparation method. It’s an excellent option to clean, maintain, and prepare different surfaces for industrial painting.

This method is the best choice for you if you need your surfaces to be completely clean, but aren’t currently needing their shape or texture to be affected.

It’s benefits include:

Ability to clean and prepare a variety of surfaces without the need for chemicals, roughening, or smoothing
Leaves no residue behind, eliminating the need for additional rinsing
Water pressure is easily adjusted, and fan nozzles easily switched to accommodate the requirements of various jobs (for example, technicians can lightly clean dust, dirt, and contaminants or increase the pressure to remove adhesives and paint)

With this guide, you can easily decide which surface preparation method suits your needs best.

Water blasting is perfect for cleaning and preparing a variety of surfaces when their shape and texture are satisfactory. Sandblasting is ideal for roughening, smoothing, and preparing different surfaces and can be used to clean them too.

Whichever method you choose, make sure you hire an industrial painting contractor who specializes in both – like Diotte Coating Services.

Whether you need sandblasting, water blasting, or advice on which one will better serve your facility, we’ve got the expertise you need! After 25 years of specializing in both surface preparation methods, we will offer sound advice and efficient surface preparation without disrupting your workflows. The best part? Our core service is industrial painting, so we’ve got you covered there too.