In aerospace MRO, every decision impacts cost, precision, and shop efficiency. One shift gaining traction is moving from dry blasting to wet blasting — and for good reason.

Here’s why wet blasting is increasingly preferred for wheel and brake maintenance:

✅ Superior surface finish: Wet blasting delivers consistent, contaminant free surfaces — critical for aluminium and magnesium components. No media embedment. No reworking headaches.

Spallation is cracking, flaking, or delamination of a coating from the surface of a part.

In AM components, it often leads to coating failure under stress, heat, or corrosion.

Why does spallation happen?

• Surface contamination (residual powder, oxides)
• Poor surface roughness control
• High residual stresses
• Weak mechanical bonding

How does wet blasting help?

As manufacturers face increasing demands for consistency, traceability, and efficiency, Vapormatt has responded with Vapormatt 4.0 – our bespoke Industry 4.0 solution fitted to our automatic machines and built specifically for wet blasting applications.

What does this mean for our customers?

✅ Unmatched process control: Real-time monitoring of pressures, flow rates, and media condition ensures repeatable, high-quality surface finishes every time.

When it comes to preparing components for high-performance coatings like PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition), surface preparation is key — and wet blasting is one of the most effective and reliable methods.

Here’s why:

✅ Surface cleanliness: Wet blasting removes oxides, residues, and contaminants without embedding particles or generating heat — providing a pristine surface for coating adhesion.

Since its launch late last year, the Vapormatt Puma XL has quickly established itself as an industry favourite for manually wet blasting larger components — and for good reason.

Designed with industrial versatility and operator efficiency at its core, the Puma XL combines rugged stainless-steel construction with precision engineering to deliver exceptional surface preparation across sectors like aerospace, composites, automotive, and additive manufacturing.

What sets the Puma XL apart?

At Vapormatt, we understand that machine downtime costs you time and money. That’s why we’ve developed a comprehensive range of service contracts — designed not only for Vapormatt machines, but any wet blasting system on the market.

From essential support to complete system coverage, our Bronze to Platinum tiers offer flexibility and peace of mind tailored to your needs, here's some of the benefits:

✅ Unlimited phone and remote software support – All contracts

✅ Full system health check – Silver and above

In medical instrument and device production, surface finish is a critical factor in safety, functionality, and regulatory compliance. That’s where Vapormatt’s patented wet blasting technology delivers a real advantage.

With unparalled process control and automation, Vapormatt's technology ensures every component is finished to exacting standards — clean, consistent, and contamination-free.

Here’s how our technology makes a difference:

For dental crown manufacturers leveraging metal additive manufacturing technologies like DMLS, achieving repeatable, high-quality surface finishes is essential.

This is where wet blasting offers clear advantages in post-processing cobalt-chrome (Co-Cr) and titanium restorations, particularly for porcelain fused to metal framework (PFM) and full-metal crowns.

Key benefits for crown manufacturers:

Wet blasting (or vapor blasting) is one of the most controllable finishing processes available — enabling precise, repeatable surface finishes for everything from aerospace components to wire and cable products.

One key variable in this process is the choice of abrasive blast media.

Abrasive media are the solid particles responsible for the erosion and abrasion that modifies a surface.

Selecting the right media is important as it has a major impact on final surface finish.

In the automotive refinishing industry, the cleaning and stripping of alloy wheels is a routine task — but not all surface preparation methods are created equally when it comes to operator safety.

Let’s compare wet blasting to traditional finishing processes like dry blasting, chemical stripping, and manual sanding, focusing solely on health and safety: