Home / Services / Industrial / Production Equipment
Industrial · Miami, FL
Production Equipment Ice Blasting
Production Equipment is one of the jobs dry ice blasting was made for. We clean it without water, without chemicals and without anything abrasive touching the surface.
What builds up, and why it matters
On this kind of work the problem is baked-on process residue, oil film, carbon, swarf and release agent. Production equipment is expensive to take apart and expensive to leave down. Solvent means ventilation and disposal; water means waiting; abrasive means grit in a machine you just cleaned.
Most industrial work happens in place, during a shutdown or a maintenance window. The people who call us about production equipment are usually maintenance leads and plant managers, and the thing they are actually worried about is that the line does not come back up on schedule.
The method
Why dry ice and not the alternatives
- Non-abrasive
The pellet is soft and sublimates on impact, so the work is thermal rather than mechanical. Machined faces, plating, paint and gaskets survive it.
- Low moisture
No standing water in a harness, a bearing or a cabinet, and no dry time before the equipment goes back into service.
- No secondary waste
Sand, soda and walnut shell all have to be swept and hauled. Dry ice leaves only the contaminant it removed.
- Often no teardown
Much of this work is done in place, which is usually where the real saving is. The labor is in the disassembly, not the cleaning.
More industrial work
Related jobs we get called for
Questions we get asked first
Will it damage the surface underneath?
On most substrates, no. The pellet is soft and sublimates on impact, so it does thermal work rather than mechanical work. We still test an inconspicuous spot first on anything unusual.
Do you have to take the equipment apart for production equipment?
Usually far less than you would expect, and often not at all. Cleaning in place is where most of the saving comes from, because the labor is normally in the teardown and reassembly.
How much mess does it make?
Far less than the alternatives, because the blasting media disappears. What is left is the contaminant itself, which we contain and clean up.
Do you come to us?
Yes. The whole rig is mobile. Compressor, hose and operator arrive at your shop, plant, driveway or dock, anywhere across South Florida from Miami out to roughly a hundred miles.
What does a job cost?
It depends on the equipment, the contaminant and the access, so we will not throw a number at you over the phone without understanding the work. Describe the job and we will give you a real figure.
How soon can you look at it?
Send photos and a short description and one of the owners gets back to you. If you have a shutdown or a deadline, say so up front and we will tell you honestly whether we can hit it.
The comparison
How this compares to the usual methods
- Media blasting
Grit removes material to do its job, so a machined face or a plated part pays for the cleaning.
- Pressure washing
The water has to go somewhere, and on most equipment that somewhere is inside it.
- Solvent and degreaser
Softens the contaminant but leaves a film, fumes and a disposal problem, and attacks finishes you meant to keep.
- Hand scraping
Labor-intensive and uneven, and whatever you scrape with eventually marks what you are scraping.
- Dry ice
Thermal shock breaks the bond. The pellet sublimates, so nothing abrasive touches the part and nothing is left to collect but the contaminant.
What comes off
The deposits we see most
Most calls involve one of the following. The common factor is a bond between two things that should not be bonded.
- Grease and oil
The greasy base coat that traps grit and dust. It releases early and takes the loose material with it.
- Carbon and soot
The hard black crust on a housing, an oven or a weld cell. Bonded by heat, and the first thing to release under thermal shock.
- Adhesive and sealant
Sound deadening, tape residue, gasket material and sealant that has cured onto a face it was never meant to stay on.
- Resin and mold release
Production residue cured onto tooling. Solvent softens it and leaves its own film; the ice lifts it and takes nothing with it.
- Paint and coatings
Removed selectively where the substrate underneath has to survive, which rules out most abrasive approaches.
- Salt and corrosion product
Salt deposit and the oxidation it starts. Anything abrasive removes the protection along with the salt.
- Ink and printing residue
Dried ink on precision roller faces, cleaned without altering the cell structure that does the work.
How a job runs
What happens once you call
If you have not seen this done before, the process is worth reading once. Nothing below is hidden in a footnote.
- We look at access and containment
Where the compressor sits, how far the hose has to reach, what gets masked or moved, and where the removed contaminant ends up. On food and electrical work this is most of the planning.
- We test a small area
Settings get proven somewhere nobody looks before they get used somewhere everybody does. What is correct on cast iron will mark aluminum, so the test is not a formality.
- We blast, then clean up
One mess instead of two: the pellet vanishes and we take away what it removed.
- You look before we pack up
The job is not finished because we say so. It is finished when you have looked at it.
- You describe the job
We start with what it is and what is on it. Whether it can come offline matters as much as the contaminant, and a wrong-tool answer is one we give up front rather than after the invoice.
What happens in your space
Solid carbon dioxide leaves no residue at all. What it does do is displace air, so an enclosed space gets ventilated as part of the job rather than as a precaution added later.
This is not a quiet method. Ear defenders are standard issue on site for anyone nearby.
The part will be cold when we finish. Sometimes that means a short wait before handling; sometimes it means a film of condensation as it warms back up.
The rig needs compressed air, which the truck supplies. There is no hookup to find and nothing of yours to plug into.
Send us the job.
Give us the job, the address and a rough description, pictures if you have them. The call back comes from Giancarlo or Kenny directly.