Application

Mold and Tooling Cleaning

Clean molds and tooling in place with pulsed laser, no disassembly and no abrasive damage to the cavity. 200W to 2kW systems supplied across Canada.

How the process works

  1. Identify the deposit. Determine what has built up on the tool and what the tool surface underneath must look like when finished.
  2. Select pulsed power. Choose a power level appropriate to the deposit and to the sensitivity of the tool surface.
  3. Choose the pattern. Use a grid or rectangular fill for uniform coverage across cavity faces, or a tighter pattern for detail areas.
  4. Preview the scan area. Confirm placement with the dual red-light preview before firing.
  5. Test in an inconspicuous area. Clean a small non-critical area first and inspect the tool surface under magnification.
  6. Clean the tool. Work across the cavity and vents with extraction running.
  7. Inspect and return to production. Verify surface texture and detail are intact, then put the tool back in service.

Before and after

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Frequently asked questions

Can laser cleaning be automated or robot-mounted?

Yes. Both series are automation-ready over EtherCAT and Profinet, so the head can be mounted on a robot or gantry and driven from a cell controller rather than held by an operator.

Operator-facing controls include eight selectable scan patterns, a maximum scan width of 300 mm, and a touchscreen HMI with dynamic alarm display. Dual red-light preview shows the scan area before the laser fires, which matters as much in a fixed cell as in the hand: it is how you confirm the part is positioned correctly without a test pass.

What is laser cleaning used for?

The most common uses are weld preparation, paint and rust stripping, mold cleaning, heritage restoration, and mining and MRO equipment refurbishment.

Supported substrates include steel, stainless, aluminum, bronze and titanium. Pulsed systems extend to cast iron, stone, concrete and wood, which is what makes restoration and masonry work practical rather than only metal cleaning.

If you have a surface that is currently blasted, stripped with chemicals, or cleaned by hand, it is worth testing on a sample before assuming which category it falls into.

Does laser cleaning meet the SP-10 surface preparation standard?

Yes. Vantix laser cleaning systems reach up to SP-10 near-white metal blast standard.

That is the surface preparation level most industrial coating specifications call for, which means laser cleaning can satisfy the specification itself rather than serving only as a touch-up method between blast operations.

The difference in practice is containment. Reaching the same standard without grit means no blast enclosure, no media recovery and no contaminated abrasive to dispose of, which is often what decides whether prep can be done in-house at all.

How does laser cleaning work?

Laser cleaning works by selective absorption. Contaminants such as rust, paint, coatings and oxide absorb the laser energy and vaporize, while the underlying metal reflects far more of it and is left intact.

Because nothing touches the surface, there is no abrasive media, no chemical stripper, and no contaminated grit or chemical runoff to dispose of afterward. What comes off is captured as particulate rather than mixed into spent blast media, which is usually the larger disposal problem.

The practical consequence is that cleaning can happen in places blasting cannot: indoors, near assembled equipment, and on parts that cannot be moved to a booth.

What laser cleaning systems does Vantix offer?

Two series. Continuous-wave systems come in 2 and 3 kW for high-throughput industrial refurbishment. Pulsed systems come in 200 W, 300 W, 500 W, 1000 W and 2000 W for precision work, mold cleaning and heritage restoration.

Continuous is chosen for area covered per hour. Pulsed is chosen for control over how much energy reaches a delicate substrate, which is what makes it usable on surfaces a continuous beam would mark.

Pulsed units at 200 to 300 W are air-cooled; 500 W and above are water-cooled.

Ready to See the Vantix Difference?

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