What Top-Performing Metal Finishing Programs Do That You Don’t

Every two months, Chris Prouty, Contributing editor for MFN magazine and Technical Advisor at Winoa shares key insights from the field, offering a firsthand look at the challenges, innovations, and best practices shaping the metal finishing industry. Here’s his latest update:

In my travels through shops across the country, I’ve seen every type of abrasive blasting operation imaginable some tuned to perfection, others plagued by reactive maintenance and inconsistent results. While most facilities understand that blasting is critical to downstream quality, too many still treat it as just another step in the process. And when quality issues appear in coating or corrosion resistance, they’re left scrambling to diagnose problems retroactively.

Top-performing finishers don’t work that way

They prevent issues before they happen by monitoring every relevant data point—upstream, in-process, and downstream. Then they act on those signals quickly.

They’re Obsessed with Data

Elite finishing programs are data-driven to the core. They constantly monitor critical blast machine metrics like:

Blast wheel amps and speed to maintain consistent energy transfer
Abrasive flow rates and operating mix to ensure even coverage
Separator curtain condition to avoid reusing fines and dust
Wear part condition to prevent cascading failures
They don’t just wait for failure they predict it, prevent it, and document it.

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They Look Beyond the Machine

The best shops know that blasting performance is affected by more than just the machine itself. They monitor:

Pre-blast part condition – Is the incoming steel corroded, oily, or scale-heavy?
Load volume – Are they overloading the machine and diluting blast intensity?
Time before coating or packaging – Are parts sitting exposed too long, risking flash rust or contamination?
These factors often determine whether a part passes QC—not the blast machine alone.

The W Care approach

W Care is the cornerstone of our project, by providing the best possible quality of shot blasting services and reducing significantly your operating costs.

W Care: a complete portfolio of services to meet your needs, consulting, testing, training, whatever your specificities and industry: transportation, metallurgy, energy, construction, equipment goods, windmills or granite and stone cutting.

Concretely what does it mean?

Our worldwide team of 20 Technical Engineers bring you every day their experience in order to expertise your blasting process, train your staff and test new solutions.

For inquiries, contact us.