Simple Solutions That Work! Issue 9

BACK-2-BASICS 2. ABRASIVE CURTAIN • The most important inspection is to verify you have a full curtain of abrasive (i.e., abrasive flowing across the entire separator lip with no gaps). The air being pulled through the abrasive curtain takes the path of least resistance. Reduced air being drawn across the remaining curtain results in dust and unusable abrasive going through the wheel. – Make necessary adjustments to the lip or baffle to obtain a full curtain. – Verify you have an adequate amount of abrasive in the machine. If you’re low on abrasive, you’ll have a more difficult time obtaining a full curtain. 3. Discharge from the Discharge Tubes • Since discharge from the tramp and dust tubes are usually at floor level, regular inspection should be fairly easy. – The tramp tube should only discharge waste – no abrasive. If you see abrasive coming from this tube, see if the screen is plugged. – The dust tube should discharge fines, dust, and possibly a few pieces of useable abrasive. Some maintenance personnel use this as a measure to determine if they are pulling all the contaminants from their abrasive mix. 15 Contact: JAMIE BURT jamie@northstarusa.net Having clean abrasive with proper media mix should help reduce your cleaning cycles and improve the surface finish.