Rust & corrosion
Laser rust removal.
No grit. No chemicals.
Rust absorbs the beam, flashes to vapor and lifts off. The steel underneath reflects most of it and carries the heat away, which is why the window between the two is widest on metal — and why rust is the job laser cleaning is best at.
Non-contact No abrasive media No solvent Test area first On site
What lifts
Corrosion absorbs.
Steel reflects.
That difference is the whole method. Rust, oxide and the corrosion layer take up the beam's energy; the sound metal underneath takes up far less and conducts the rest away. Set the parameters to the gap between them and the corrosion leaves while the steel stays.
On badly corroded steel that is usually a layer stack — loose scale over an oxide layer over sound metal — and the beam works down through it in order. What comes off leaves as vapor and fine particulate, captured at the head, so there is no spent media to sweep, bag and dispose of afterwards.
- Loose scale / flash rustabsorbs — removed
- Oxide layerabsorbs — removed
- The sound metalreflects — stays
Where it is not the tool
What we will
tell you no on.
Laser cleaning is very good at corrosion and poor at a few specific things. You should hear that before the quote, not after the crew is on site.
- Tightly adhered mill scale The exception on steel. Mill scale bonded hard to the plate takes a mechanical method first — and if something mechanical has been over it, the smeared-metal question is back on the table for any inspection that follows.
- Deep pitting The beam reaches what it can see. Corrosion down inside a deep pit is shadowed from a line-of-sight process, and no amount of power changes the geometry. Rust removal is not metal replacement — where section has been lost, it is lost.
- Heavy grease over the rust Thick grease and tar are better degreased first. The laser is cleaning the contaminant it can couple into, and a layer of oil on top is just something else absorbing the energy.
- Anything out of line of sight Back faces, blind cavities and the inside of tight box sections. If the head cannot see it, the beam cannot reach it.
Compared with the usual methods
What each one
leaves behind.
Every method takes the rust off. They differ in what else they do to the metal, and in what you are left holding when the job ends.
- Abrasive blasting Fast on open steel, and it brings containment, media recovery and a waste stream with it. Some media stays in the surface. Indoors or near running equipment, the containment is often more work than the cleaning.
- Wire wheel & power brushing Takes almost no thickness off the plate — which is why it looks like the safe option. It smears a thin layer of metal instead, and that layer can close the mouth of a crack a penetrant test is there to find.
- Grinding Takes sound metal along with the corrosion. On a weld, reinforcement height and undercut are measured against limits, so every pass spends margin on the geometry being judged.
- Chemical stripping A residue to rinse and a surface that has to be dry before anything goes on it. The spent stripper and the rinse water are a waste stream to collect and account for.
- Laser Non-contact, so nothing is pressed, folded or dragged across the metal. No media, no solvent, no rinse, and far less to mask and contain — the time comes off around the job rather than in the pass.
Afterwards
Dry, bare,
and ready for the next step.
The surface comes back dry and uncontaminated, with no abrasive left in it and no solvent to flash off. For most jobs that means it is ready for the coating system, the weld or the inspection without a second preparation step in between.
One thing we do not claim: that the metal is left metallurgically unchanged. Laser cleaning is a thermal process. Where your specification controls the surface itself, that call belongs to your engineering, on your material — and we will run a test area so they can make it.
- No media in the surface
- No solvent residue
- Dry immediately
- Nothing smeared over a crack
- Minimal containment
- Test area first
Book a demo
Bring us the
worst piece you have.
Tell us the metal and how far the corrosion has gone, and we will bring a mobile demo to your site anywhere in the Southeast and run it on your own stock while you watch. If it is not the right tool for your job, you will hear that on the same visit.