The process includes a high-pressure hose and nozzle, a compressor and bulk-storage tank. It's not welding or construction, but requires full-coverage headgear and goggles.

It's abrasive blasting. Loose abrasive grain and blasting equipment have moved forward technologically, along with other maintenance-product industries. Some new blasting abrasives and equipment that are available may surprise distributors who are not aware of innovations in the blasting market.

Jack Burns, president of Virginia Materials of Norfolk, Va., said the first concern in getting into the bulk abrasive blasting business is freight. Shipping and receiving grain is done on rail cars, flatbed trucks and cargo ships.

"The smaller the package, the more expensive the freight bill and the lower the margin, per unit. It's like most other bulk items. Distributors of bulk abrasives need a lot of storage, and the best way is to be able to unload railroad cars," said Burns, whose company sells abrasive grain direct and through distributors.

Safety and health have become important in the abrasives industry in recent years, so new products focusing on worker safety are popular. Fugitive dust is a problem for loose grain applications, particularly micro-fine free silica which, when breathed, can cause silicosis, a lung disease.

Items replacing silica-containing products include angular crushed glass and crystalline ferric oxide.

Angular crushed glass is recycled colored glass ground to appropriate mesh size for blasting; ferric oxide is a blocky, heavy iron-based crystal. There is no free silica in either abrasive, Burns said, and ferric oxide is one of the most promising new abrasives because it blasts steel clean and profiled for painting, and also leaves residue on steel that inhibits flash rusting.

W.H. Shurtleff, a distributor of construction and maintenance products in South Portland, Me., distributes Dupont's coarse staurolite brands, Starblast and Starblast XL, very low free-silica blasting abrasives that are blocky and dense, rather than sharp and friable, or brittle. Staurolite "knocks off" scale and rust, according to customer service manager Jim Welch, rather than cutting into metal.

"This product is ideal because you use a minimum amount of abrasive and maximum pressure at the gun nozzle. Starblast does not break down quickly. It's safer because it releases very little free silica," he said. Staurolite is very heavy per cubic inch of product, so customers use less at higher blast pressure.

The major customer use of products like Starblast is cleaning of new steel plate before fabrication. The steel is blasted in open air and the abrasive knocks off scale in less time than conventional sand, coal slag or aluminum oxide, Welch said. Customers should use over 100 pounds of pressure at the nozzle in any application using this abrasive, he said.

Another high-profile niche product for blasting is the high-pressure water-abrasive blasting machine, Burns said. Used in many industries that distributors already service, water blasters blend abrasives, pressure guns and water in various configurations to degrease, strip or clean materials of the heaviest paint and corrosion.

New, water-soluble abrasive media that contains no free silica or aluminum oxide is available for blasting. Standard and water-abrasive blasters are used in many industries including automotive, aircraft, construction, military, roads and bridges, railroads and paper mills.