Dry Ice Blasting

metalman

Oldtimer
Anyone use or have experience with using dry ice blasting to strip paint?
The technology has been around for a long time, I believe it was developed to blast bridges to avoid much of the cleanup with conventional media. The "media" is CO2 and just evaporates.
In the early eighties there was a local painting outfit that had the equipment mounted on large flatbeds for mobile use. They had a part in developing the method and I saw samples of removing paint from various substrates including wood as in residential paint stripping. It worked. Like a lot of other things it starts out as expensive, complicated and not practical for smaller work but I suspect that should have changed by now.
It may still be not practical but looks like a better alternative to the mess with dry media or the wet blasting with the crushed glass. I don't see how it could leave any contamination behind. Don't know how effective it would be with pitted rust.
 
my buddie's step father is a machinist and actually stared a side gig prob 10 years ago making the machine. they are still expensive. 10 years ago i remember his being priced around $20k. im sure they havent come down in price.
 
I remember using blocks of dry ice to cool anodize tanks 25 years ago, put your head in the cooler to grab a block from the bottom and your breath gets taken away. I am guessing the operator is in a full scuba suit?

It is basically the same idea as the baking soda, how it explodes on contact and gives an extra kick for paint removal on that initial hit with no chance to reuse.
 
they are used alot in manufacturing plants to clean machinery so there is no mess. you have to keep grit out of bearings, conveyor belts, etc. he worked for a glass bottle company and they used it there. it was all kinds of automated forming, capping, labeling and coating machines for the bottles. how well it works at stripping paint...i have no idea.
 
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