Blasting Media – EpiX MP vs Glass Bead on Cast Aluminum

Choosing the right abrasive blasting media for your project depends heavily on the results you want. One media type can provide vastly different finishes depending on the material you’re blasting.

One of our favorite all-purpose abrasives for removing paint, rust, and oily buildup is EpiX Medium Profile superoxalloy abrasive. We use it frequently to prepare parts for paint and powder coating on steel and cast iron parts. But as we work through side projects on our Range Rover restoration, we wondered about its effectiveness on cast aluminum.

In the past we’ve used glass bead on cast alloy parts like valve covers and intake manifolds. And while the finish always looks great, glass bead leaves the shop floor a bit slippery around the blast cabinet. The powdery, microscopic glass orbs seem to get everywhere.

To ease our curiosity, we grabbed the intake manifold from our project and masked off section to test both materials. Our large Eastwood B120 blast cabinet was already loaded with EpiX, as it usually is. We recently brought a benchtop blast cabinet into the shop for another project and loaded it with glass bead for our test. The results are evident in the pictures.

EpiX MP

To our surprise, the EpiX MP was milder on the aluminum than we expected. It did a great job of removing the old Cosmoline, minor surface corrosion, and engine grime making it look derelict. The cast aluminum surface held up without losing its original appearance, and it worked fast, taking only a couple minutes. It also generated very little dust in the cabinet.

While the finish looked clean and new, it didn’t have the same pop of brilliance we’d seen from other abrasives. Nevertheless, we were completely satisfied with results on our part. It was a vast improvement over the way it went into the cabinet.

Glass Bead 70-100 Grit

After testing the EpiX, we remasked the manifold and moved it to the B40 modular cabinet for its turn with the glass bead. This fine https://www.eastwood.com/glass-bead-blast-media-100-170-grit-50-lbs.html70-100 grit formulation took slightly longer to remove heavier buildup, and of course found its way out of the cabinet in several places. But the finish was amazing. The glass beads have a polishing effect that leaves the metal looking shiny and new.

We left a section of the part masked throughout both processes for comparison as well. It’s clear that both of these abrasives were effective at restoring the bare aluminum to a like-new appearance. While either would be fine, our preference for this project has us leaning toward the glass bead for remaining cast aluminum parts.