Abrasive blasting uses compressed air or water to direct a high velocity stream of an abrasive material to clean an object or surface, remove burrs, apply a texture or prepare a surface for painting. Abrasive blasting is more commonly known as sandblasting since silica sand is commonly used as the abrasive, although not the only one always used. Industries that rely on sandblasting on a daily basis include painters who work on large structures like bridges, granite monument makers, foundries and shipbuilders. The term "silica" broadly refers to the mineral compound silicon dioxide (SiO2). Although silica can be crystalline or amorphous […]