dust removal on composite parts

[skippertony]

Hi,

We need to glue together composite and aluminium parts. We are looking for a cleaning method which could remove any carbone fiber dust particules that has accumulate on surface of the parts. This dust prevents us to do an appropriate gluing process.

Right know, we are doing the cleaning by hand with acetone, but the process is long and unefficient. We are looking for a solution on an industrial scale since we have hundreds of parts to clean.

Do you have any solutions or technologies to suggest?

Regards,

Tony

 

[btrueblood]

Dishwashing machine?

 

[hydtools]

Air knife and vacuum collection. It would be a dry process.

Ted

 

[Compositepro]

Use a tack cloth. Painters use them to remove dust from surfaces prior to painting when a good finish is desired.

 

[KENAT]

If they're acetone safe, then why not ultrasonic acetone bath or something like that.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[shotline]

I'd ask a platter what they recomend.

 

[tygerdawg]

Crikey...what does your Safety Guy have to say about you using acetone like this?

You may consider, as a cleaning process component, blowing deionized air onto the surface. It would help reduce static-cling of the particles. Then you could perform a simple wipe down with something a lot less volatile and dangerous than acetone.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[ornerynorsk]

Ditto on the tack cloth. Sometimes a solvent wash will introduce additional contaminants on to the surface, albeit inadvertantly.

 

[chicopee]

Parts stored in strainers and dipping in solvent tanks.
Why Acetone as a cleaner? Why not a citrus based cleaning agent.

 

[btrueblood]

No, don't use a tack cloth if you are plating or bonding the surface afterwards. A tack cloth is cheesecloth impregnated with beeswax or similar, and can leave behind a film of wax, which then plays heck with bonding. ...Unless you then solvent wipe it to dissolve/clean off the wax film. Or paint, which is a solvent process that can cut the wax anyway.