Media blasting small "fuzzies" left behind from CNC

[Paul Brinkmeyer]

OK, I am new to wood finishing and this might be a crazy idea.
I do not have a lot of sanding/finishing equipment yet, just a ROS.
I do have a sand blaster that I use fine walnut blasting media in.
Right now it is very clean as I just cleaned it out and put all new walnut media in.

So, regarding the sand blaster
I have tried this on a few of the things I cut with the CNC to do clean-up just to see how it would do.
I do not think it did that bad, but I could be missing something.
Is some of the oil from the shells that might be deposited going to mess things up later?
I do not notice any oil, but could it be there?
Is there some other reason I should just give up on this idea?

If this would be better in the finishing forum, go ahead and move it.

[Bruce Page]

Do some test pieces. You would have to be careful with soft grain woods like pine but it sounds like a great idea if it works. I use an ordinary stiff bristle scrub brush to knock of the majority and 3M radial bristle disk brushes for the fine detail.
For 3D work, I found using a ball cutter and a small step over of 10% or less works well. It takes longer to make the cut but really reduces the amount of clean up/sanding required.

[Jim Becker]

Blasting is a great way to get an "effect", but I'd not use it for normal cleanup. I use a soft wire brush when I have wood that has "fuzzies", but I try really hard to avoid them with speeds/feeds/tooling choices

[Mark Bolton]

While your playing around with this option keep a dead accurate spread sheet going of the time it takes you to remove the part and then post process the part. Its pretty common with CNC's that you get to a point where you want to capitalize on the speed and automation of the CNC and in rushing to push part production off the machine you shoot yourself in the foot leaving a bunch of post processing that is required.

All of this when it may be far better too look at your tooling, toolpathing, cut strategies, and simply leave the parts on the machine a bit longer or even add a couple extra op's to get a part of the machine thats one and done.

We cut a mile of parts that we could cut wide open, balls to the wall, and be loading sheets on and off the machine with reckless abandon. That said, there is a mile of dust/chips left behind, there is post processing (fuzzies) that have to be cleaned up before the parts ship, so simply adding some additional toolpathing or taking a final cleanup pass, picks up all the chips, knocks off the fuzzies, and in the end while letting the machine run seems painfully slow,.. its WAY faster because its consistent, and the people who would be dealing with the post ops are making other work, and were not sweeping the floor and breathing dust.

Im sure in some very specific work there will always be post ops but make sure your not rushing your machining and getting the parts off the machine as clean as you can. There will likely be no down stream ops that are as efficient as any that can be run on the machine.

Add in that media blasting is indiscriminate with regards to wood and it gets harder.

[bobby milam]

I used to spend 45 minutes cutting something then maybe an hour of tedious sanding to get in all the nooks and crannies. Now with a more rigid machine and sharp tools I cut the same thing in 45 minutes and might spend 5 minutes or less sanding to get it ready to stain. So much nicer when you let the machine do the work for you. Sometimes just programming in a very light clean up pass at maybe even a faster speed is all it takes and saves more time in the long run. I haven't heard of anyone sandblasting to get rid of fuzzies but if it works for the pieces you are doing then great.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, the cleanup pass is a key factor in reducing manual labor and so easy to do with a CNC, too.

[Brad Shipton]

Here is a video I watched some time ago when looking at part cleanup for 3D parts. I found some of the comments useful, so I thought I would share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYTF11sR8bc

You will need to experiment to find the balance you like with respect to machine time and cleanup time. Some fuzzies or tool mark clean up will be necessary regardless.