Laser rust removal machines

[Paulbarrett]

Hi all.

Anyone any experience with these machines.
Prices seem to be coming nearer to a more suitable level for smaller workshops etc. but are the lower wattage machines any good.
I’ve been looking at them and seem an absolute game changer for rust removal on car restoration like I do. Rather than the mess of sandblasting

 

[Roger440]

Hi all.

Anyone any experience with these machines.
Prices seem to be coming nearer to a more suitable level for smaller workshops etc. but are the lower wattage machines any good.
I’ve been looking at them and seem an absolute game changer for rust removal on car restoration like I do. Rather than the mess of sandblasting

On cars id be wary. I got the impression it changed the structure of the surface, which on a car is probably most of it!

I stand to be corrected though.

I think Ed china did some on his channel. Nowhere near as impressive as the promos might suggest.

 

[roofman]

They seem to make an excellent "key" for the paint to go back on...hoping they go the same as 3D printers and reduce in price as more people buy.

 

[optima21]

thing with these is that they can only remove surface rust, when they can do one that get the the rust out of spot welded seam of the inside of a cill or box section, then that would be more interesting

 

[Paulbarrett]

just the same as blasting then but without the mess

 

[Paulbarrett]

That to me would be a game changer being able to do specific areas

 

[Ross365]

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die". I wonder what the physical process is that removes the rust. The melting point of oxides is pretty high. Mr Google say the meting point of iron and iron oxide are about the same (~1500'C), but to get iron oxide to vapourise, you'd have to get above that. So, does this process take off a thick oxide layer, but then leaves you a thin layer of fresh oxide. I have no idea, but would want to know before buying one.

 

[Paulbarrett]

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die". I wonder what the physical process is that removes the rust. The melting point of oxides is pretty high. Mr Google say the meting point of iron and iron oxide are about the same (~1500'C), but to get iron oxide to vapourise, you'd have to get above that. So, does this process take off a thick oxide layer, but then leaves you a thin layer of fresh oxide. I have no idea, but would want to know before buying one.

I would like to know that too, but if it does get rid of of all the crap under seal and rust then a little acid wash as I do treat light rust, then it serves a great purpose.

 

[Robotstar5]

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die". I wonder what the physical process is that removes the rust. The melting point of oxides is pretty high. Mr Google say the meting point of iron and iron oxide are about the same (~1500'C), but to get iron oxide to vapourise, you'd have to get above that. So, does this process take off a thick oxide layer, but then leaves you a thin layer of fresh oxide. I have no idea, but would want to know before buying one.

I remember that scene

 

[Farside]

Funny how the evil villain always cackles and exits the room just before the victim wangles a way out of it.
Damn sure if I'd strapped a secret agent to a laser table, I'd hang around to make sure it worked.
I mean, they weren't cheap back then, I'd want my money's worth, else it would go back.

 

[Fazerruss]

I happened to watch this earlier.....

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die". I wonder what the physical process is that removes the rust. The melting point of oxides is pretty high. Mr Google say the meting point of iron and iron oxide are about the same (~1500'C), but to get iron oxide to vapourise, you'd have to get above that. So, does this process take off a thick oxide layer, but then leaves you a thin layer of fresh oxide. I have no idea, but would want to know before buying one.

The idea is that the laser is tuned to emit Infrared at a frequency that is easily absorbed by rust, but not easily absorbed by bare metal.

That way it can apply extremely high power to a tiny area very efficiently vaporising a small amount of the rust in a fraction of second.

To put it in a welding perspective, a 2kW laser sweeping over a 0.25mm×50mm area, will apply similar power per unit area to gouging with a ⅜" carbon at 230A... But whilst rust will absorb say 95% of that energy, bare steel absorbs more like 10%.

When it's absorbed, a lot of that heat energy is also transferred into mechanical energy as the sudden evaporation of rust creates gas exploding out of the surface, which then physically ablates more rust particles from the area immediately surrounding where the laser hit.

 

[Keith 66]

A quick google sees they are usually fiber lasers but what actual frequency they work on isnt clear. All the videos online show an almost miraculous cleaning job where the rustiest corroded piece of junk comes up like a new penny in no time.
But where does all the crap go? Having used a C02 laser in a school I learnt very quickly that the fumes from them are very bad for you, The fumes from one of these cleaners must be ten times worse. You also need to invest in seriously good extraction and a decent air fed or powered respirator!

 

[awemawson]

C & C Equipment on YouTube have one on trial for titivating their John Deer dozers they have several videos of it being used on a variety of substrates with variable results. If I remember correctly they were concerned about warpage when doing tin work but generally were impressed.

 

[tom2207]

But the sound they make is just so great , sounds like a light sabre ...

 

[Paulbarrett]

I follow a guy on YouTube oldschool outrider Bellows customers.
He has been using one and seems very good in a Real world situation for what I would want it for. Just not uk based in our world lol

 

[Farside]

I happened to watch this earlier.....

I MUST have one!
My life will be complete.

 

[Danez]

I MUST have one!
My life will be complete.

just wait for the parkside one

 

[Ross365]

The idea is that the laser is tuned to emit Infrared at a frequency that is easily absorbed by rust, but not easily absorbed by bare metal.

That way it can apply extremely high power to a tiny area very efficiently vaporising a small amount of the rust in a fraction of second.

Ohh, that is cunning! I'm not sure I knew that there was such a thing as an IR laser, but I'm behind the times!

As for Mr Bond, I think we all know it was a bloke with a gas torch cutting the metal from underneath! Nicely done effect.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Ohh, that is cunning! I'm not sure I knew that there was such a thing as an IR laser, but I'm behind the times!

Yeah, it's a very neat trick!

You have to wonder if those cleaning tools were invented by a scientist going "ohhh, you could do that..." based on theory, or an engineer going "this thing won't bloody cut... But hang on a second".

The laser tubes in a laser cutter will also be some variant of IR laser, again with different tuning if it's for metals (which have extremely narrow bands of wavelength where they're not reflective), or "basically everything else.

But it's theoretically possible to make a Laser for just about any EM wave.

The name Laser itself was coined by swapping "Light" in place of "Microwave" when someone realised you could make a "MASER" for regular light.

X-Ray Lasers which were originally developed by USAF with a plan to shoot down missiles, but actually came to be used in scientific instruments for finding the 3D shape of proteins.

Attempts to make Gamma Lasers have been hindered by the sheer amount of energy involved causing it to break itself before it can begin "Gaseing"... That's considered one of the 30 most important problems in Physics today, but no-one seems to articulate why.