Metal Abrasive: Steel Shot, Steel Grit and Blast Media

A metal abrasive — also called blast media or blasting media in purchasing language — is the consumable that does the actual work inside any blasting machine: it cleans, descales, and strengthens the surface of castings, forgings, steel plate, and structural steel. Alongside our shot blasting and sandblasting machines, we supply the four abrasive families our customers run in them: cast steel shot, cast steel grit, steel cut wire shot, and non-metallic media for soft alloys and wet blasting.

The range is deliberately short. We are a machine manufacturer first, so every grade we sell is one we run in our own turbines and pressure pots, in the SAE sizes our machines are delivered with. Media is stocked in 25 kg bags, 40 bags per pallet, with a minimum order of one ton and free 200 g samples before you commit to a full order.

The Four Abrasive Families We Supply

We keep the line simple on purpose: shot for turbines, grit for nozzles, cut wire for peening, and glass or aluminium oxide where steel cannot be used. If your application needs something outside this list, send us the workpiece drawing, and we will confirm whether our supply chain covers it.

Cast Steel Grit: GP, GL and GH Hardness Grades

Cast steel grit is angular media for air blasting, chosen when the job is to cut a surface profile for coating adhesion or to remove heavy rust and mill scale. It is the media we recommend with our pressure blast machines.

Three hardness grades are supplied: GP at 42–52 HRC for general cleaning, GL at 53–60 HRC for tougher scale, and GH at 60–64 HRC for the fastest cutting and the longest life in aggressive duty. Chemical composition per ISO 11124 and GB/T 18838: carbon 0.80–1.20%, manganese 0.35–1.20%, silicon ≥ 0.40%, sulphur ≤ 0.05%, phosphorus ≤ 0.05%. For coating preparation to Sa 2½ (ISO 8501-1) or SSPC-SP10 on structural steel, G-14 to G-25 is the usual working range.

 Steel Cut Wire Shot (SAE J441)

Steel cut wire shot is cut from wire into cylinders of equal length and diameter, supplied at 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 mm to SAE J441 and JB/T 8354. Because every particle is identical, it peens uniformly, generates far less dust in service than cast shot, and has the longest media life of the three steel families — a real advantage in shot peening and in machines with high media circulation. Conditioned cut wire shot, rounded in service before shipment, is used where a pure peening action is required without the initial sharp edges of as-cut material.

Glass Bead and Aluminium Oxide for Soft Alloys and Wet Blasting

Two jobs cannot be done with steel media. The first is finishing stainless steel, aluminium and non-ferrous alloys, where carbon steel would embed or contaminate the surface — here we supply glass bead for a uniform satin finish and aluminium oxide for a more aggressive cut on stone, glass and hard alloys. The second is wet blasting: carbon steel corrodes in the water circuit of a wet blast machine and quickly loses its cutting ability, so wet blasting runs exclusively on non-metallic media. We size glass bead and aluminium oxide grades to the wet blast machine you order from us, and we supply the first fill together with the machine.