Glass bead blast media is essentially a type of lightweight, tiny glass particles commonly used as a blasting abrasive.
Typically made from soda-lime glass, these spherical abrasives come in various sizes based on their particle diameter.
From a stability standpoint, they exhibit strong chemical stability, evenly distributing impact force to minimize damage to workpieces.
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What Are Bead Blasting’s Applications?
| Aerospace industry | Remove rust and paint from mechanical components to remove knife marks. |
| Remove scratches on the rubber | Reflective paint for roads |
| Scratch treatment on the surface of stainless steel. | |
| Foundry industry; | Pre processing in the electroplating industry. |
| Semiconductor Industry | Crafts for exterior decoration |
They are suitable for maintaining stability with materials particularly sensitive to chemical properties.
These environmentally friendly and low-damage media are highly popular in sandblasting and shot peening processes.
Their use primarily focuses on removing surface burrs, enhancing fatigue strength, and corrosion resistance of metal components. Throughout the blasting process, they can increase surface roughness and adhesion.
For softer decorative objects, they achieve a matte or semi-matte effect, particularly useful for decorative items, where a desired gloss can be achieved after surface treatment.
For more delicate surfaces such as plastic or rubber molds, especially in medical equipment and delicate decorative items, using glass microbeads of smaller sizes makes it particularly easy to achieve the desired surface treatment effect.
They not only remove burrs but also handle edge treatments. For instance, in semiconductor devices, metal tubes, and metal parts, they effectively clean burrs and edges.
Size of glass beads for blasting
Model of Bead blasting glass | Sieve Size (mesh) | Particle Size Range(μm) |
WSL17L# | 20~40 | 425 ~ 850 |
WSL 18L# | 30~40 | 425 ~ 600 |
WSL 19L# | 40~60 | 300 ~ 425 |
WSL 20L# | 60~100 | 150 ~ 300 |
WSL 21L# | 70~140 | 106 ~ 212 |
WSL 22L# | 100~140 | 106 ~ 150 |
WSL 23L# | 100~200 | 75 ~ 150 |
WSL 24L# | 140~200 | 75 ~ 106 |
WSL 25L# | 140~270 | 53 ~ 106 |
WSL 26L# | 200~325 | 45 ~ 75 |
Specification of Bead blasting glass
| Specific gravity | 2.4-2.6 g/m3 |
| Stacking density | 1.5g/cm3 |
| Type | Blasting / Shot Peening Media |
| Spherical | |
| Rockwell hardness: | 46HRC |
| Mohs | 6-7 |
| Round rate | 80% |
| Melting point | 710-730 ℃ |
| Index of refraction | 1.5—1.6 |
Their greatest advantage lies in inflicting minimal damage to workpieces while achieving relatively high surface smoothness.
As such, glass bead blasting media is highly sought after as an environmentally friendly, economically viable, and recyclable abrasive, particularly suitable for applications requiring fine surface treatment.
The hardness of glass bead blasting media is moderate, making them applicable in various industries such as electronics, plastics, rubber, and automotive manufacturing, effectively removing rust, paint coatings, and oxide layers from materials.
In practical applications, glass bead blasting media can serve as a substitute for various products in different fields such as mineral abrasives, metal abrasives, plastic abrasives, plant abrasives, and silicon wafer sand.
While the aforementioned alternatives are cost-effective, their hard texture increases the risk of damaging workpieces.
Therefore, many users lean towards glass microbeads as a sandblasting abrasive due to their superior cleaning and smoothing effects.
When selecting substitutes, it’s essential to consider the material type, cost budget, surface quality requirements, blasting pressure, and other factors. From safety, environmental, and economic perspectives, glass microbeads are undoubtedly a trusted abrasive option.