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Vapormatt

Name: Vapormatt
Address: Bridgwater, TA64DL, GB
Telephone: +44 (0)1823 257976
Price range: $

The Vapormatt Group, designs and manufactures manual and automatic surface cleaning systems.

We are proud that the name of Vapormatt is synonymous with high quality cleaning and surface preparation across industry - from automotive and general engineering to aerospace and nuclear decontamination - and in sectors ranging from tooling to wire cleaning and extrusion die polishing. Our wide range of machines delivers high quality surface performance economically and efficiently, whatever the

size or type of application. Vapormatt designs thus play a key role in ensuring our customers’ own high standards of production are fulfilled, whether via an in-house installation or through our dedicated Vapormatt Contract Process Centres.

03/09/2026

Inline memory wire finishing without acid baths or offline bottlenecks.

A Nitinol stent navigates coronary arteries. A guidewire carries a hydrophilic coating that has to bond first time. Both depend on the surface condition of the wire long before it becomes a device.
Heat treatment scale and oxide contamination do more than affect appearance. They shorten fatigue life, reduce corrosion resistance and raise nickel ion release at the surface, which is the defining biocompatibility risk in any implantable memory wire component.

The established finishing routes each carry a limitation that process optimisation alone cannot solve:

- Chemical pickling removes oxide, but the hydrofluoric and nitric acid mixtures required for shape memory alloys alter surface topography and create fatigue crack nucleation sites. It runs offline, in acid baths, with its own waste treatment and compliance burden.
- Electropolishing produces a bright surface but retains the inclusions where corrosion initiates in service. It remains a batch process.
- Dry blasting does not achieve complete oxide removal from shape-set wire, as SEM analysis confirms.

The Vapormatt Profelis solves the problem inline. It wet blasts, rinses and blows off continuous wire at line speed, from 1mm up to 54mm diameter, using water-cushioned abrasive that removes scale and residue without introducing the surface stress of dry blasting and without altering wire dimensions or transformation behaviour. Every parameter is set at qualification, stored as a named recipe on the HMI and recalled at the touch of a button, so batch one matches batch one thousand.

No acid baths. No airborne particulate. No offline bottleneck.

We brought wet blasting to the world, and we remain the only wet blasting company to have engineered a dedicated machine for continuous wire and cable. For manufacturers supplying to ASTM F2063 within ISO 13485 frameworks, that level of repeatability is a compliance requirement rather than a commercial advantage.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y1m-50

02/09/2026

An end mill is only as good as its least consistent edge.

The tip and the shank end of a long flute should carry the same edge radius. In drag and stream finishing they often don't, because media density varies with depth in the drum and the tool experiences different abrasive contact along its length. That variation is difficult to diagnose and expensive to correct once the batch has shipped.

The Vapormatt Oncilla takes a different approach. A programmable nozzle is directed at the tool, so blast angle, pressure, media selection, nozzle distance and gun velocity are all set per recipe. Each face receives the parameters it needs, rather than a single setting applied across the whole profile.

What that means for end mill production:

- Homogenous edge radii within +/-3µm, with a uniform hone along the flute
- A gantry robot running servo axes at up to 1000mm/s, giving uniform coverage of complex geometry without long cycle times
- Surfaces prepared for PVD and CVD coating, typically achieving HF-1 adhesion, the highest rating on the Rockwell-based adherence scale
- Recipe-driven parameter setting with post-process reporting, so results are repeatable batch to batch

Options extend the process further. Patented micro nozzles follow cutting edges and helical profiles, with laser-assisted programming available for helical geometries. A second blast station lets edge honing and pre-coat polishing run consecutively in one machine, on two separate recipes.

Our K-factor edge honing process is protected by patent and comes from decades of process development in this application. No other wet blasting machine builder holds an equivalent, and that knowledge informs every recipe we develop, from the first application trial through to production commissioning.

Edge preparation isn't a step that happens after the real engineering is finished. It decides whether the coating bond holds and whether the batch carries your quality mark.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0x_ddM0

01/09/2026

Profelis for continuous rotary extrusion (CRE).

Continuous rotary extrusion is unforgiving. The CRE wheel grips your feedstock rod by friction alone, and once the rod is in the groove there is no way to compensate for surface contamination.

Oxide, scale and residual lubricant are carried into the extruded product as porosity, blister defects or conductivity loss. If your feedstock is not consistently clean, your output will not be consistently good.

The Vapormatt Profelis wet blasts, rinses and dries rod inline, at production speed:

- 360-degree uniform cleaning from Ø1mm to Ø54mm, with no embedded media and no dimensional change
- Consistent surface activation that improves grip in the wheel groove
- Integrated rinse and air wipe, so no off-line step re-exposes the rod to oxidation
- A cleaning standard held through a full shift without operator intervention

The commercial case is simpler than the technical one. Clean, high-specification rod commands a premium and narrows your supplier list. Wet blasting allows for a wider degree of feedstock variability before it reaches the wheel, so you can run lower-grade material without compromising extrusion quality.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xZFnR0

27/08/2026

Why the Vapormatt Puma XL is a strong fit for aircraft toilet MRO

Aircraft lavatory components aren't the easiest parts to clean!

Scale, urine salts, waste residue, biological films and corrosion can build up on pans, tanks, pipework, pumps and valves. In waste lines, that buildup can restrict flow and, ultimately, contribute to an aircraft being grounded.

So the cleaning process needs to do more than simply remove what's visible.

This is why the Vapormatt Puma XL is particularly well suited to aircraft toilet MRO.

The Puma XL is a manual wet blasting machine designed for component cleaning and surface preparation. Its large cabinet, wide-opening side door and 250 kg stainless steel turntable make it highly practical for handling a wide range of aircraft components.

Wet blasting brings several cleaning and finishing stages together in one process. Water, abrasive media and compressed air remove contamination while producing a consistent surface finish. Blast pressure and abrasive concentration can also be adjusted to suit the component and the finish required.

For an MRO operation, that offers some clear advantages:

• Thorough cleaning: removes contamination while also preparing the component surface.
• Controlled processing: adjustable pressure helps operators process different components without unnecessarily aggressive treatment.
• Contained operation: the cabinet keeps the blasting process enclosed, which is particularly important when dealing with contaminated lavatory components.
• Rinse and blow-off: integrated water and air nozzles allow components to be rinsed and dried after blasting.
• Water recirculation: the S-Tank filtration system cleans and recirculates water, helping keep operating costs under control.

There is also a bigger benefit for MRO teams: process consistency.

Vapormatt supports the installation with process development, recipe setting and component holding arrangements.

That's important when the goal is not simply to get a component clean.
It's about having a repeatable process that helps technicians work safely, maintain quality and get components back into service efficiently.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xRDg80

25/08/2026

The Puma + reaches implant geometries drag finishing cannot.

Surface condition on an orthopaedic, spinal or dental implant governs osseointegration, coating adhesion and biocompatibility.

Drag finishing handles simple geometries well enough. Porous ingrowth surfaces, internal tapers, undercuts and lattice structures are a different problem. Media contact is partial or absent, finishing becomes inconsistent across a single component, and every implant design needs its own fixture, with all the Ra surface roughness variation that introduces.

Wet blasting works differently. The media is blasted at the surface rather than the component being driven through it, so a pressurised slurry stream reaches into lattice structures, threaded sections and internal channels, flushing them as it goes. The Vapormatt Puma + directs that stream with up to four Mk3 blast guns at 5.5 bar across a driven turntable or a bi-directional barrel for small parts.

The water phase prevents abrasive embedding in titanium and cobalt chrome, and calcium-phosphate grades leave no foreign residue for a biocompatibility assessment to account for.

Cycle time, barrel rotation speed and direction, and Z-axis traverse speed are stored as selectable recipes on the colour HMI, so a qualified cycle is recalled rather than reconstructed.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xPWWS0

20/08/2026

Why the Vapormatt Puma XL strips paint properly

A wheel that reaches NDT with paint still sitting in the recesses doesn't fail because the inspector missed something. It fails because the process upstream left them no chance of finding anything.

Wet blasting solves that. The slurry cushions the abrasive, so plastic media at 3 to 5 bar lifts the coating without cutting into aluminium or aerospace alloys. Pressure, media grade and blast angle are adjusted independently, which means one machine strips a single topcoat or works through multiple layers. What comes out is clean in the recesses and threads as well as on the flat faces, ready for NDT or primer without further preparation.

The Puma XL is engineered around the large, awkward, often contaminated components that other cabinets struggle with. The 1100mm turntable swings out for external loading and carries 250kg, so a wheel or engine casing doesn't need two operators. Closed-loop filtration sits within the machine footprint and handles oily parts without a separate pre-clean stage. The plastic-media processing kit adds the concentrator enricher, long series nozzle and sump heater that keep a stripping recipe stable across the shift.

In our sample processing trials, a 600mm aircraft wheel was fully stripped using plastic media in 30 to 40 minutes of manual processing.

The Puma XL ships complete. Boron carbide nozzle, sight glass for quickly and easily measuring abrasive concentration levels, bubble valves and window wash are all standard, so nothing needs adding to make the machine work.

Learn more about the Puma XL: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xLk0l0

19/08/2026

Two process steps you can delete from aerospace shot peening.

Most jet engine peening routes carry two operations that exist because of the equipment, not because of the component.

The pre-clean. Dry shot peening specifications require parts to arrive clean, so components carrying oil and grease from previous operations go through a separate degreasing step first. In wet peening that contamination is removed during the peening cycle itself and filtered out automatically. The step disappears from the route card.

The polish. Media flowing in a water slurry produces a smoother, more consistent finish than dry peening at equivalent intensity. Our systems achieve Almen intensities to 39N and 38A, which often eliminates downstream polishing operations on aerofoil surfaces.

Two operations removed means two fewer handling stages, two fewer queues between cells, and two fewer opportunities to damage a high-value component in transit. For an MRO running compressor blades at volume, that affects cost per part and turnaround time, not just surface quality.

The compliance position is unchanged. Our automatic machines comply with AMS 2432 (Shot Peening, Computer Monitored), with shot flow, air pressure, nozzle position and cycle time monitored in real time and automatic shutdown on deviation. Our installed base includes MRO operations processing components to Rolls-Royce, GE and Pratt and Whitney specifications.

Look at your peening route card. How many of those steps are there for the part, and how many are there for the machine?

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xJZvf0

18/08/2026

New video: watch the Vapormatt Sabre processing pallets of cutting tool inserts.

Every insert competes on four things: substrate, geometry, coating and edge preparation. Most manufacturers have the first three under tight control. The fourth tends to be where manufacturers win or lose market share. It's also the one manufacturers most often struggle to repeat, batch after batch.

In the video you can watch up to four pallets index beneath an eight-gun crown, with servo axes combining circular and linear motion so each rectangular pallet is covered in straight, overlapping passes rather than arcs. Slurry concentration, air pressure, abrasive ratio, axis speed and gun position are all recipe-driven and monitored in real time.

What that delivers on the insert:

- Edge hones held to ±5µm, with K-Factor programmed from 0.8 to 1.2
- Cobalt removed from the substrate to expose the carbide grain structure for coating adhesion
- Inserts leaving the process clean to HF1 with no embedded media
- One pallet every 2 to 30 minutes, depending on insert size, process and abrasive

Our systems control up to 15 process variables simultaneously, and we've proven the process across insert manufacturers from single-shift operations through to the largest producers in the world. Patented elutriation removes degraded media continuously, and that media consistency is what holds the tolerance from the first pallet of a run to the last.

Learn more about the applications and advantages of wet blasting for cutting tool inserts: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xHZW40

13/08/2026

Will your wet blasting machine deliver the same result at cycle 10,000 as it did at cycle one?

Every wet blasting supplier claims their process is repeatable. Few can show you the engineering behind that claim.

Wet blasting involves 15 independently adjustable variables. Media concentration affects surface profile. Abrasive breakdown affects cycle times. Left unmanaged, any one of these drifts quietly over a production run, and the part changes with it.

We built our machines to solve this with hardware, not assurances.

Our patented elutriation tower uses fluid dynamics, not sieves, to hold media particle size within specification throughout a run. Proprietary sensing keeps slurry delivery consistent at every nozzle.

Vapormatt 4.0, our IIoT platform, logs every process parameter and flags degradation before it affects your output.

This is why aerospace and medical device manufacturers rely on us. These industries don't accept assurances. They need proof.

We hold 12 patents across this control architecture, the documented record of engineering problems solved. No competitor holds a comparable body of protected IP in wet blasting process control.

Buying a wet blasting machine means accepting whatever level of process control the manufacturer chose to invest in. We made that investment so you don't have to compromise on it.

Lean more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xzF4Q0

12/08/2026

Wet blasting vs dry blasting: what matters for NDT preparation.

Surface preparation before nondestructive testing isn't just a formality. Get it wrong and you risk masking defects, or shortening the fatigue life of the component you're inspecting.

That's why more MRO teams are choosing wet blasting for aerospace components over dry methods.

Protecting fatigue life

Dry blasting can drive abrasive media into the substrate during jet engine component preparation. The resulting embedded media can obscure surface cracks, exactly what NDT is designed to detect. Wet blasting suspends abrasive media in water, reducing impact velocity while still removing contaminants effectively. The result is a clean surface that gives NDT an accurate picture, free from masked defects.

Faster, cleaner NDT preparation

Dry processes often leave residual dust that needs separate cleaning before inspection. Wet blasting removes this step, leaving surfaces clean and ready for inspection.

Cutting turnaround time

Combining preparation and cleaning into one process helps reduce aerospace MRO turnaround time without compromising precision.

We've spent decades engineering wet blasting technology for exactly this kind of application. If dry blasting is still part of your NDT prep process, it may be worth a second look.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xzKql0

Address

Bridgwater
TA64DL

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+44 (0)1823 257976

Website

http://www.vapormatt.com/index.html

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