Laser Paint Removal

To the eye, metal surfaces restored after removing coatings or paint with laser appear to be as good as sandblasted surfaces. Are they? To assess this, IRISNDT performed comparative tests all on one plate which had been originally media blasted and coated. Some sections of the originally coated plate were laser cleaned while others were media blasted before being recoated. The clean surfaces were subjected to black light inspections, dust tests, surface swabs, and SSPC visual ranking comparisons. Then, the sections were recoated with various commonly used coatings. The adhesion of the recoat was evaluated with X-scribe and pull off adhesion tests. Lastly, various areas were examined metallographically. How did the laser cleaned recoated surfaces perform versus their media blasted counterparts? The images below illustrate our findings.

We could not see the difference. The adhesion test results were similar and, metallographically, the two preparation techniques could not be differentiated. As stated, the steel plate had been originally media blasted and the surface deformation had not been significantly altered by the laser cleaning.

For more information, contact Paul,Klammer@irisndt.com, cell: 780-788-9785.