Old Topic
I’m curious if anyone has used Dry Ice blasting on their engine bay / undercarriage and results?
I’ve seen a number of videos having done and it looks fairly impressive in how well it cleans in a fairly nonabrasive manner, variety of surfaces/material that can be cleaned, and returns to a near factory look in some cases…not all. The machines being used are typically fed dry ice into a hopper. It appears useful in doing once.
There’s a Wheeler Dealers episode where Elvis uses it to clean an undercarriage.
My takeaway was it looks interesting, expensive, and probably suboptimal for bulk paint and corrosion removal.
I took that as a takeaway as well from various videos where it works well for cleaning items, but not necessarily for rust/paint removal where other media would be better. Benefit is being able to get into the small tight places and it doesnt create as much of a mess with water…although that has a place as well.
I’m thinking of trying on an engine bay first due to expense.
I worked with a company that makes dry ice blasting equipment for a few years. The process is intended to clean surfaces not strip surfaces to bare metal like abrasive blasting processes. Great for removing surface contamination while leaving painted surfaces beneath alone. Or cleaning off castings covered with dirt and grease. The dry ice is not abrasive enough to effectively remove corrosion. Different tool for different job.
The system that Boeing uses strips paint right down to the aluminum. The residue after basting is paint dust. I am sure that Boeing has the money to use ground up unicorn horns for media if needed so they are probably not the best example.