Tiger, Tiger + Wet-Blasting Systems

Based in the UK, Vapormatt specialize in wet-blasting systems for several different industries. Having invented the first wet blasting machine back in the 1940’s they remain leaders in the technology thanks to continued investment in R&D.

The company’s Tiger system has firmly established itself as the gold standard for cutting tool insert finishing, with installations in many of the world’s leading cutting tool insert manufacturers.

The system can be configured to process inserts for all essential pre-coating, edge honing or post-coating operations, including:

• Cleaning to a uniform RA and to HF1 level of cleanliness for optimum coating adhesion
• Creation of highly reactive surfaceswith high surface energiesfor optimum coating adhesion
• Cobalt skin removalwithout the creation of hazardous cobalt dust
• Honing of the cutting edgeto a specific radius to prevent ‘chipping’ of the cutting edge, allowing the tool to be run at full speed from new
• Honing to a specific K-Factor ranging from ‘trumpet’ to ‘waterfall’ hones foroptimum cutting performance and durability
• Post coating finishingto remove coating imperfections, like coating droplets, to leave a uniform aesthetic surface with an optimum RA for efficient operation in use
• Post coating peening toconvert tensile stress in the coating to compressive stress, producing the strain hardening that dramatically improves a coatings durability
• Selective coating removalto reveal the correct coating for the required task, for example one layer might be thermally conductive, whilst another is wear resistant.

Wet blasting is the only surface finishing technology capable of carrying out all these operations repeatedly and to a consistently high standard.

Whilst the Tiger and Tiger + systems cater to the world’s largest insert manufacturers; the company also produces a range of systems to suit medium and small manufacturers too.