Home / Services / Industrial / Production Line
Industrial · Miami, FL
Production Line Ice Blasting
When people call about production line, the constraint is usually the same. 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 line 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
Sand and soda wear the surface down along with the dirt. Dry ice uses cold to break the bond, so the metal under it stays as it was.
- Low moisture
Nothing is left wet, so no water sits in seams, channels or behind covers. The equipment goes back into service dry.
- No secondary waste
No secondary waste stream. Nothing is left from the blasting itself, and the contaminant that comes off gets contained and cleaned up by us.
- Often no teardown
No water and no grit means nothing has to be protected by taking it out first. Most parts stay installed while we work.
More industrial work
Related jobs we get called for
Questions we get asked first
Will it damage the surface underneath?
That is the whole reason people pick this method. Machined faces, plating, paint and gaskets generally come through untouched, and we prove the setting on a small test patch before working anything you will see.
Do you have to take the equipment apart for production line?
Usually not, and that is where most customers save. Equipment cleaned in place goes back to work sooner, without the hours of taking it down and putting it back together.
How much mess does it make?
Some, because the grime has to go somewhere. It falls where we have planned for it to fall, and picking it up is part of what you are paying for.
Do you come to us?
We come to you. Moving a machine is usually the expensive part, so we skip it and bring the cleaning to the machine instead, anywhere across South Florida within about a hundred miles of Miami.
What does a job cost?
There is no flat rate, because no two jobs carry the same buildup or the same access. Tell us what it is and where it sits, and send a photo. We will come back with a real price, never a teaser to get us through the door.
How soon can you look at it?
The first answer comes quickly even when it is a no. If dry ice is the wrong fit for your job, we will tell you on that first call so you are not waiting on us for nothing.
The comparison
What the alternatives actually do
- Hand scraping
Slow, inconsistent, and the tool marks the surface. Fine for a small area, unworkable across a machine.
- Media blasting
Cuts into the substrate by design. Fine on structural steel, wrong on aluminum, plating, machined faces or anything with a tolerance.
- Pressure washing
Forces water where water should not go, looms, bearings, seams, and then the job stops while it dries.
- Solvent and degreaser
Good at softening, bad at leaving. There is always a residue and always a drum to get rid of.
- Dry ice
The pellet is soft and the mechanism is temperature, not abrasion. It turns to gas on impact, so the only thing left to sweep up is what came off.
What comes off
The deposits we see most
What follows is the short list of regulars. Every one of them is a crust or film bonded to a working surface.
- Resin and mold release
Cured resin clings to fixtures and tooling. Grit would wear the tool as it cleaned, which is why this needs something softer.
- 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
Ink and coating on anilox and press rollers, surfaces where changing the texture changes the print.
- Food residue
Burnt-on product, fat and sugar on processing gear, with no chemical residue left on a contact surface.
- 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
Carbon on parts that run hot all day. It is bonded by heat, which is exactly why a blast of cold undoes it.
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.
- You look before we pack up
A second pass while everything is still connected is free in every sense. A return trip is not.
- You describe the job
Describe the equipment and the mess. If it cannot come offline that changes the plan, so say so early.
- We look at access and containment
Hose run, compressor position, what needs masking, and where the contaminant is collected. For food and electrical jobs the containment plan takes longer to settle than the blasting does.
- We test a small area
If you want to see the test, stand with us while we do it. You can look at the patch yourself before we move to anything visible, and nothing goes further until it looks right to both of us.
- We blast, then clean up
One mess instead of two: the pellet vanishes and we take away what it removed.
What happens in your space
Carbon dioxide is what you breathe out, frozen solid. It is non-toxic and leaves no residue, but in an enclosed space it pushes out oxygen. So on indoor work we decide how air will move through the area before the rig starts.
Expect noise. Everybody inside the working area wears hearing protection, us included.
On electrical parts, give a cold surface time to come back to room temperature before power goes on, so any condensation has cleared first.
Everything the rig needs arrives with it. No tap, no drain, no outlet.
Send us the job.
If you are not sure dry ice is the answer, ask anyway. We will tell you straight if it is the wrong method.