Dry Ice Blasting... wow waaay COOL!

[GypsyGraphics]

I've always been interested in sandblasting, it was kinda my introduction into the sign business many (many, many) years ago. Today i was watching American Restoration and they used a DRY ICE BLASTER, but just to remove the paint from old metal. Which left me wondering if that's all it could be used for... cleaning a substrate but not necessarily etching/engraving?

I just thought it was so interesting... and such a clean process, but maybe more expensive than sandblasting. I found this dry ice blasting segment on Modern Marvels
again, interesting cleaning process, even on items as fragile as antique books... but just cleaning.

Will dry ice not work for etching/engraving, because it doesn't stay solid?

 

[showcase 66]

I used to use one when I worked for Goodyear to clean out the tire molds. It worked great for that stuff but we had to be careful when cleaning around the lexan shields that we had. To much on it and it would crack. So I wouldnt use it on lexan.

Also I would assume the pressure has to be different. I know we used the dry ice to try and clean an aluminum rack and we bent the hell out of it.

 

[Flubber]

I worked for a company that did dry ice blasting and we used it for removing paint and a lot in the paper mills for for cleaning the smoke stacks, it doesnt leave any material behind except the paint and whatever we was removing with the dry ice. Very cool process and very freaking cold...lol

 

[SignosaurusRex]

I would think that because how dry-ice blasting works, it would not work on a stenciled/traditional method application.
http://www.coldjet.com/en/information/how-does-it-work.php

 

[iSign]

That is literally the coolest blasting I've ever heard of!

 

[FatCat]

When I worked in the offset printing world there were guys who would blast presses with dry ice to clean up years of grease and ink off the frames/gears, etc. Was nice because you didn't have a big mess of chemicals/solvents to clean up. The dry ice would just evaporate and all that would be left was a pile of crud on the floor that could be picked up with a rag.