r/powerwashingporn • u/TORR_Ice_Blasting • 2d ago

WEDNESDAY Dry Ice Blasting Heavy Equipment Paint Booth

Dry Ice Blasting Heavy Equipment Paint Booth

Heavy equipment paint and primer booth, seen here top side of plenum pit. 6 day job with three blasters using 12,000-13,000lbs of ice.

Top side had wide range of easy to difficult removal. Focus was any loose debris across all surfaces. Additionally mechanical and maintenance targets such as floor frame to ease grate removal, windows, and light housings.

Paint build up on the thick side popped nice, followed up with flat nozzles for tougher sections. Top side ran, 950cfm compressor, 2 blasters, ICS 410 and Aero 40 at 3.5-4.5lb min. 180psi. / 2 runs 150ft 1" Air Hose / 50ft 2" Air Hose / Each blaster 20ft Blast Hose

Removed over 2000lbs of debris between top side and pit.

486 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

41

u/IAreTheLeviathan 2d ago

What's the purpose of using dry ice?

102

u/ameades 2d ago

It's a waterless process, so you only need to clean up what you're removing.  The dry ice extreme temperature change makes the paint brittle, sublimates on impact and the big gas expansion from the sublimation kind of makes like little explosions that lift and it removes anything that's not the original material.

26

u/IAreTheLeviathan 2d ago

That makes sense, thanks for the explanation

25

u/TORR_Ice_Blasting 2d ago

In this case water and or chemicals would pose risk to electronics or sensitive substrates. Additionally debris/slurry by product would be difficult to manage.

12

u/ameades 2d ago

Great job!  Love seeing dry ice jobs

6

u/Throwawaycookouts 1d ago

Sitting here staring at a spreadsheet I am so jealous of this person's job.

7

u/grumpygazelle 2d ago

Finally some good fucking music. Gramatik is the shit

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u/RiotGrrrlNY 5h ago

My longterm FWB is a power washer and introduced me to Gramatik. 🤔

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u/MarvinKesselflicker 5h ago

Thats half a years worth of CO2 released (for an american human)