The ability to combine the use of a superheated water system, with an adjustable and effective abrasive flow, is now viable and available through an optional abrasive attachment for ThermaTech® systems.
This innovative and ground breaking combination is actually able to create a pressurised mixture of hot water and abrasive medium, whereas in the past, superheated and steam systems would have had limited success with NON-Temperature responsive coatings (such as cements/ lime based paints, carbon sulphation, lime effervescence etc).
Coatings or deposits that remain brittle at 150° can however often yield to the application of abrasive, giving a ‘mechanical’ advantage and this combination of ThermaTech® with this attachment will now provide even more distinct advantages over the many other commercially available superheated and steam systems.
This abrasive attachment kit is specifically designed to connect the ThermaTech® gun, and can be used up to 100°C temperature.
Please watch the video, to see a demonstration and for an explanation.
How does this differ from a ‘normal’ sandblasting attachment?
The ‘typical’ or traditional abrasive attachments generate a vacuum in the same way as our type using a venturi. This is the process of a water jet spraying through a tapered nozzle at high velocity, which causes a negative pressure behind (a bit like a lorry driving through a narrowing tunnel).
The main issues with traditional attachments on masonry are:
- They are designed for cold water application so many components are not designed to work hot.
- Jet sizes are often for >12 litres per minute. Smaller single jetting for a ThermaTech would reduce their venturi strength.
- Are a single pencil water jet which is typically a very intense spray, which is hard to blend in passes on anything other than metalwork.
- Often have no abrasive flow control.
- 100% abrasive is drawn up as a solid flow (not an air flow carrying abrasive at higher velocity) - a side effect of this is that water at the blast head can accumulate at the abrasive tube, also the nozzle creates more of a ‘slurry’.
The ThermaTech attachment has overcome issues 1-5 by use of the following:
- The total construction of the attachment is brass and stainless steel. The only plastic is the nozzle body for protection of the inner ceramic nozzle. (The reason for working hot is for an ‘out of focus’ spray jet - foggy, diffuse and controlled for low intensity and blending in each pass at the surface).
- Using three internal water nozzles means the water jet is not from a single source. This improves venturi strength at very low flow of water (as low as 40 Bar on the ThermaTech pump ~ 4 litres per min water flow).
- Three jets are less intense than one jet.
- There is a flow control at the top of the pick-up tube. This is simply letting air in to reduce the amount of abrasive being pulled from the end of the straw.
- The pick-up tube has an air flow to the bottom of the straw which means the attachment is pulling large volumes of air with a small amount of abrasive dosed into this flow.
In conclusion - by combining three jets, water at 100 degrees C (steam point) and a large volume of air (not pure abrasive), we are able to achieve a very controllable blast nozzle which is very sympathetic to masonry substrates.
