VAPOR HONING ANYONE? PROVIDENCE CYCLE WORX GIVE US THE 101 ON MAKING IT SHINE
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his month’s Tech Column is on the Vapor Honing Technologies machines. Now, if you’re not familiar with Vapor Honing well, then grab a cold one, sit back and prepare to be in awe. Traditional sand or bead blasting, as it is more commonly referred to, uses various media along with high-pressure air to blast away paint, rust, and sometimes grease and oils. Now, that’s all fine and dandy unless what you’re blasting is vintage, and you want to leave it as unmolested as possible. Media is the material that comes out of the gun at a high velocity to “cut” through paint, gunk, etc. Now, media comes in many different forms for different applications. There is glass bead, walnut shell, ceramic oxide, and so on. These different materials cut in specific ways, from fine to more aggressive cutting. So, if you’re trying to keep those 47 Knuckle cases from having the VIN blasted off, you might want to use a finer cutting agent. That leads us to Vapor Honing, what Vapor Honing does is use high-pressure air, water, and the appropriate cutting media for the job at hand. Like traditional bead blasting, there are different materials for Vapor Honing. The advantage to Vapor Honing is that water is way less aggressive on the part you’re blasting. As I mentioned before, you can have more aggressive media for harder and deeper cutting applications. The water, in general, will act not only as a coolant but is way less damaging to the part overall, so remember those 47 cases we spoke of earlier no threat to losing the VIN or anything
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February ‘22 - March ‘22 - CYCLE SOURCE MAGAZINE
Article And Photos By: Xavier Muriel
precious. Now, let’s get some facts straight. I do not use my machine as a cleaner at all! I have set up mine as
a second to the last stage before heading to show polish. I follow a
specific process in my shop. First, the parts are degreased and cleaned thoroughly before getting to my VHT machine. For those wondering why, the more contaminants (oils, paint, etc.) in my machine, the more I must change the media. Which equates to downtime and cost. My preferred media is Ceramic Oxide; it leaves an almost polished satin look to the aluminum part. I don’t do steel in mine as it will rust quickly after. Although, I know of some shops that do steel that is powder-coated immediately after. Anything Aluminum can have a sheen to it with good prep work. My machine is the VH900 series. It is a closed-loop system, so no freshwater is needed. The various bins remove sediments and separate the media with fresh water that can be used to wash off the part before taking it out of the cabinet, which saves time. A well-lit cabinet and wiper blade make for a great field of view, which in turn eases the entire process. If needed, the well-sized cabinet can hold parts as big as a car manifold. There is also a timer to keep track of hours and media changes. VHT offers several different models ranging in size from benchtop to industrial. Obviously, the larger machines require a certain PSI level, so be sure to keep that in mind when looking at them. Proudly made in South Carolina, all units come with excellent customer service and are pretty much ready to rock right out of the crate. Check them out at Vapor Honing Technologies.com. Tell them X sent ya!
