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Wheelabrator Blogs

Blast machine forensics - quest for IBC efficiency

A blast machine is a complex beast. Assessing its energy consumption behaviour to find room for improvement therefore isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.
Wheelabrator Machine Installation

Equipment upgrades: innovation by stealth

Ever wondered how we refine our shot-blast equipment? At Wheelabrator, technological innovation is usually inspired by solving unique customer challenges or carrying out EMPs.

New specification for rail wheels

A change in the specification of rail wheels by the American Association for Railroads (AAR) raises peening questions.

A lean, mean Wheelabrator machine

Our lean journey has taught us to never stop looking for better ways of doing things. Whether that’s a small change to a routine task or a whole new way of prototyping – ultimately, to let us deliver better solutions for our customers.

Adding a new dimension to R&D with 3D printing

A glimpse into how we use 3D printing in LaGrange for our R&D.
Blog - Keeping up with complexities: blasting 3D-printed parts

Keeping up with complexities

Surfaces are getting more complex. We’ve adapted to that, developing blast and peening technology that can cope with internal surfaces and organic external topographies. But things are about to get more fiendish still.

The right abrasive for the right job

Selecting the correct abrasive medium for cleaning and peening surfaces is crucial to achieve the desired surface finish, but the process can be both complex and confusing.

Keeping it simple

Simplicity means being able to exchange a part easily, it means a machine that is fit-for-purpose – without frills that can become sources of error.
Wheelabrator Barrel Machine

Rebirth of the North American foundry industry

Until recently, the foundry industry had been in decline in North America. Cheap labor costs in countries like China saw companies looking overseas for foundry requirements. Demand dropped and many foundries in the US closed.
Connecting Rods Machine

Superfast flipping of connecting rods

The customer doesn’t want the machine, they want the end result. It sounds obvious, but it actually has profound implications not just for how we identify the right equipment for a customer, but for development and innovation in our field.

Fingers on the pulse: blast technology and the Internet of Things

The change rung in by this technology-driven new approach to manufacturing is rapid –and it’s everywhere. Blast equipment is no exception.
COMET HD Blast Wheel development blog

Evolution holds the key to reinventing the wheel

An engineering insight about the development of the COMET HD blast wheel and why it really does live up to the accolade of ‘best blast wheel’.
Shot peened compressor blades blog

Smart machines make Aerospace shot peening a precision art

There’s a clear reason why Aerospace engineering is driving innovation and development in shot peening – put simply, if something goes wrong in Aerospace, people’s lives are on the line.
Truck

Sieving, screening, separating – the high-tech way

More complex internal geometries of parts, more tightly integrated processes, fiendish peening specs, exact repeatability of results. These trends affect every aspect of the blast machine and beyond.
Wheelabrator Customer Application Lab LaGrange, GA, USA

Investing wisely - How to choose the right machine

When you invest in a new shot blasting machine, you want to know it’s going to work. You want to know it’s going to deliver the finish that you need at a reasonable cost and with the cycle time that suits your surrounding processes.
Blog entry organising innovation Stanislav Venclik

Organising innovation

Wheelabrator’s expert design, production and assembly teams face many challenges day-to-day, but one of the key ones is how to keep up with the continuous innovation taking place.
Between spec and reality wheelabrator blog post

Between spec and reality

In high-spec peening applications in aerospace and automotive, precision and repeatability of peening results are critical to part life and performance.
mean machines go lean blog post

How to make mean machines go lean

When we started our lean journey, everyone thought our shot blast machines were basically incorrigible.