Surface Preparation Guide

This standard outlines the essential guidelines for using solvents to effectively remove oil, grease, dirt, and various contaminants from steel surfaces before applying coatings. Recognized as SP1, it serves as a fundamental step before proceeding with other SSPC abrasive blasting methods. Following solvent cleaning, it's important to eliminate any residual dust. The standard details multiple approaches for applying solvent cleaners, including methods like wiping, scrubbing, direct spraying, vapor degreasing, immersion, utilizing alkaline cleaners, and steam cleaning. These varied techniques ensure thorough surface preparation and contaminant removal, critical for optimal coating adherence.

This standard sets forth the basic requirements for manually removing loose paint, rust, and various other surface contaminants from steel structures with non-powered hand tools. It emphasizes the importance of effective surface preparation for steel, ensuring a clean and suitable surface for further processes or coatings. This approach, focusing on manual methods like scraping and sanding, is crucial for maintaining the integrity and longevity of steel surfaces.

This standard outlines the essential criteria for using power tools to remove loose paint, rust, and various surface contaminants from steel structures. Mirroring the objectives of SSPC-SP2, this method aims to thoroughly cleanse steel surfaces of the same types of contaminants. It involves the use of rotary, impact, or power brushing tools specifically designed to effectively strip away layers of stratified rust, weld slag, and mill scale. This power tool-based approach is critical for achieving a clean, prepared surface, crucial for subsequent treatments or coatings.

This standard details the criteria for attaining a near-white metal cleanliness level on surfaces, the most advanced grade in abrasive blast cleaning. It mandates a pristine finish, free from shadows, streaks, or stains. Under this specification, surfaces should appear completely clear of all visible oil, grease, dust, dirt, mill scale, rust, coatings, oxides, corrosion products, and other foreign matter, even when inspected without magnification. This requirement underscores the importance of achieving an exceptionally clean, prepared surface, vital for high-quality coating or painting applications.

This standard requires the complete removal of all tightly-adhering substances through commercial blast cleaning. This process targets the elimination of visible oil, grease, dust, dirt, mill scale, rust, coatings, oxides, corrosion products, and other foreign matter from surfaces. The goal is to ensure that no more than 33% of each unit area of the surface exhibits any staining or shadows, maintaining a high standard of cleanliness. Commercial blast cleaning is a key method for achieving this level of surface preparation, essential for subsequent applications or treatments.

This standard specifies that when observed without magnification, surfaces must be completely free of any visible oil, grease, dirt, dust, as well as any loose mill scale, rust, and coating. However, it allows for the presence of tightly adherent mill scale, rust, and coating, defined as materials that can't be removed using a dull putty knife. This criterion differentiates this blasting method as being less aggressive compared to an industrial blast clean, focusing on precision and preserving the integrity of the surface while ensuring thorough cleanliness.

This standard mandates that surfaces must be devoid of all visible oil, grease, dust, dirt, mill scale, rust, coatings, oxides, corrosion products, and any other foreign matter when examined without magnification. Additionally, it sets a strict limit where shadows, streaks, and stains are only permissible on up to 5% of the surface area. This specification is crucial for ensuring a high degree of surface cleanliness, essential for quality coating or treatment applications.

This standard demands that surfaces be completely clear of visible oil, grease, dirt, dust, rust, coating, oxides, mill scale, corrosion products, and any other foreign matter, as confirmed by inspection without magnification. An exception is made for minor rust remaining at the bottom of pits on originally pitted surfaces. It also specifies a required surface profile depth of at least 1 mil (25µm) between peaks and valleys. Both grinding tools and impact tools are approved methods to achieve this specified level of cleaning. Additionally, it's essential to remove oil, grease, and dust both before and after the cleaning process, ensuring optimal surface condition.

The SSPC-SP16 standard outlines the guidelines for Brush-Off Blast Cleaning on both coated and uncoated surfaces of galvanized steel, stainless steels, and non-ferrous metals. This standard focuses on the use of abrasives for cleaning metal surfaces other than carbon steel. It emphasizes the importance of visual verification to assess the final condition of the surface. Additionally, it specifies the materials and procedures required to achieve and verify this desired end state. This ensures thorough cleaning while maintaining the integrity of the material.

This standard requires the removal of 90% of all tightly-adhered substances from the surface. It allows for the presence of shadows, streaks, and stains caused by rust, mill scale, and old coatings across the entire surface (100%). This specification is particularly applicable in scenarios where the existing coating is both well-adhered and compatible with the application of a new coating. This ensures an effective balance between thorough surface cleaning and preserving the existing coating for optimal new coating application.

This standard establishes the requirements for power tool cleaning to achieve a commercial-grade cleaned steel surface, while also creating or maintaining a minimum surface profile of 25 micrometers (1.0 mil). A commercial-grade power tool cleaned surface should be free from visible oil, grease, dirt, rust, coating, oxides, mill scale, corrosion products, and other foreign matter, with specific exceptions. It permits random staining up to 33% of each unit area of the surface, where staining can include light shadows, slight streaks, or minor discolorations caused by rust, mill scale, or previous coatings. Small residues of rust and paint may remain in pitted areas of the original surface. This standard is distinct from SSPC-SP3 and SSPC-SP11 in its approach and specifications for achieving the desired surface cleanliness and profile.

This surface preparation standard is designed to roughen and clean a bare substrate, including a hot-dip galvanized coating, creating a profile that is ideal for painting. Upon completion, it ensures that the profiled surface is devoid of visible oil, grease, dirt, dust, corrosion products, and any other foreign matter, as confirmed by inspection without magnification. Additionally, the standard outlines specific procedures for use on galvanized steel, including checks for passivation treatment and the presence of wet storage stain, ensuring optimal preparation for subsequent painting or coating processes.

These standards define the levels of surface cleanliness achieved through the use of waterjet cleaning, covering a range from low-pressure water cleaning to ultrahigh-pressure waterjetting. They outline four degrees of surface cleanliness, each addressed in separate standards: Clean to Bare Substrate (WJ-1), representing the most thorough cleaning; Very Thorough Cleaning (WJ-2); Thorough Cleaning (WJ-3); and Light Cleaning (WJ-4). These classifications provide essential guidance for different cleaning intensities required in waterjet cleaning processes.