NACE Resource Center

Coatings Estimators: Charts

	How to Specify Blasting
		Your coating supplier will always designate the degree of surface preparation required for his materials. The three basic standards used to describe surface preparation are: NACE standards, Steel Structures Painting Council (SSPC) "Surface Preparation Specifications", and the Swedish Pictorial Standards. Their definitions are:

NACE	SSPC	Swedish*	Description
N/A	SP 1, Solvent Cleaning	N/A	Removal of oil, grease, dirt, soil and contaminants by cleaning with solvent, vapor, alkali, emulsion or steam.
N/A	SP 2, Hand Tool Cleaning	St 2	Removal of loose rust, loose mill scale and loose paint by hand chipping, scraping, sanding and wire brushing.
N/A	SP 3, Power Tool Cleaning	St 3	Removal of loose rust, loose mill scale and loose paint by power tool chipping, descaling, sanding, wire brushing and grinding.
1	SP 5, White Metal Blast Cleaning	Sa 3	Removal of all visible rust, mill scale, paint and foreign matter by blast cleaning.
3	SP 6, Commercial Blast Cleaning	Sa 2	Blast cleaning until at least two-thirds of each square inch is free of all visible residues.
4	SP 7, Brush-Off Blast Cleaning	Sa 1	Blast cleaning of all except tightly adhered residues of mill scale, rust, and coatings.
	SP 8, Pickling		Complete removal of rust and mill scale by acid pickling, duplex pickling or electrolytic pickling.
2	SP 10, Near White Blast Cleaning	Sa 2 1/2	Blast cleaning until at least 95% of each square inch is free of all visible rust, mill scale, paint and foreign matter.
N/A	SP 11-87T, Power Tool Cleaning to Bare Metal	N/A	Removal of all visible rust, mill scale, paint and foreign matter using power tools and producing a minimum profile of 1 mil.

* Also SSPC-Vis 1 Standard