Sandblasting & Industrial Blasting in Arkansas

American Services AR provides mobile sandblasting services across Arkansas — industrial and commercial sandblasting, abrasive blasting and media blasting, from Little Rock and Conway to Fort Smith, Jonesboro and Camden. We prepare the surface of structural steel, equipment and concrete to the SSPC standard your coating spec names. We degrease before we blast so oil is not driven into the profile, contain the dust and spent media, and schedule around production — nights, weekends and shutdowns included. Our starting rates are published below: steel from $4.00 per square foot, plus mobilization, spent-media disposal and any lift or scaffold access, each on its own line; concrete is quoted after a site walk; production-rig jobs carry a $5,950 minimum, and small spot jobs are quoted per job. Structural steel and equipment are priced by the rig-day. In business since 2010, with 3,500+ jobs completed, $2M in general liability coverage, and crews trained to OSHA 10 and 40-hour HAZWOPER.

Industrial Sandblasting Services We Provide

Everyone searches for sandblasting (or sand blasting), but the trade name for the work is abrasive blasting. It is also the fastest way to handle rust removal and paint removal on steel, and to strip failed coatings before a recoat. Compressed air drives an expendable abrasive through a nozzle. It strips rust, mill scale and failed coating and leaves a rough anchor profile the next coat can grip. We choose the media to suit the substrate and the coating spec. For production work we bring a rented towable air compressor to your site. Small spot jobs use a compact blast setup sized to the area.

SSPC Surface Preparation: What “Blast It Clean” Means

A coating is only as good as the surface under it. That is why the coating manufacturer’s data sheet names the preparation it requires, usually by SSPC number (the standards are now published by AMPP). We blast to the number on your spec, not to “looks clean.”

• SSPC-SP 1, Solvent Cleaning — the step before every blast. Blasting over oil and grease smears them into the profile, and the coating lets go later. So our hot water units degrease the steel first.
• SSPC-SP 7, Brush-Off Blast — removes loose rust, loose mill scale and failing paint. Tightly adhered material stays. It is used for maintenance painting over a sound coating and to roughen a surface before overcoating.
• SSPC-SP 6, Commercial Blast — removes all visible rust, mill scale and old coating. Only light shadows and stains may remain, on a limited part of the surface. New steel with loose mill scale blasts quickly. Painted or rusted steel takes far longer because there is pitting to chase, so we price the two separately.
• SSPC-SP 10, Near-White Blast — only slight staining may remain. We do it on non-immersion steel, as a subcontractor to your coating contractor, who primes the same shift.

What we do not take: immersion service and tank linings. Owners often require a contractor certified under the SSPC/AMPP QP 1 program for that work. We will tell you so rather than bid it.

Flash Rust, Dew Point and the Primer Window

Freshly blasted steel is bare and reactive. An Arkansas summer brings heavy humidity and morning dew, and bare steel can flash rust within hours. No coating spec lets you prime over rust bloom. So sandblasting steel is a timing job:

• We blast only as much steel as the primer crew can coat that shift.
• We watch temperature, humidity and dew point through the day. We stop when the steel is too close to the dew point to hold.
• Outdoors, we start after the dew burns off and finish the day’s blast area well before evening.
• Steel that turns before it is primed gets blasted again. So we plan around the forecast, not the rental clock.

Concrete Sandblasting for Floor, Containment and Marking Coatings

Coatings on concrete fail when the surface was too smooth, too weak or contaminated. The International Concrete Repair Institute’s Guideline 310.2R grades concrete surface profiles from CSP 1, nearly flat, to CSP 10, very rough. Our concrete brush-blast reaches CSP 2–3 on walls, overhead concrete, sumps, containment walls and edges. Open floor slabs are quoted per job. The brush-blast removes laitance, curing compound, old sealer and light contamination, and opens the surface for thin-film coatings, sealers and line marking. If your system needs a heavier profile than a brush-blast gives, we will say so at the site walk.

We degrease oil-soaked slabs with hot water first, because abrasive spreads oil rather than removing it. We are a Sherwin-Williams installer for epoxy and polyaspartic concrete coatings, and we self-perform concrete work. So one crew can prep, repair and coat a floor with no hand-off. See industrial epoxy floor coatings, secondary containment coatings and warehouse floor marking.

Dust, Silica and Lead: How We Control a Sandblasting Site

• Containment sized to the job. Ground covers, tarps and screens keep abrasive and paint debris off nearby equipment, vehicles, doors and drains. Spent media and debris are collected and removed, never washed toward a storm drain; disposal is a separate line on your quote.
• Silica. Blasting concrete releases crystalline silica from the slab itself, whatever the media. OSHA’s respirable crystalline silica rules apply (29 CFR 1926.1153 for construction work). Blasters wear respiratory protection suited to abrasive blasting, and the blast zone is marked off. We coordinate with your EHS team on air intakes and sensitive equipment.
• Lead. Older industrial coatings can contain lead, so previously painted steel is tested before work is scheduled; lead testing is its own line on the quote. Blasting lead-bearing coatings falls under OSHA’s lead in construction standard (29 CFR 1926.62). That work is outside the scope and rates on this page, and you will know before anything is scheduled.
• Water. When a wash is part of the job, we contain and recover the wash water. Food and beverage plants can add the Compliance service level from our industrial pressure washing program, with food-safe chemistry and a written wash water record for your file.

Industries We Serve Across Arkansas

Safety Standards on Your Site

Abrasive blasting brings high-pressure air and hose, abrasive at high speed, dust, noise and often work at height. Our crews are trained to OSHA 10 and 40-hour HAZWOPER. Owner-operator Anthony Sons leads the work, and the team brings more than 30 years of combined experience. We are members of the PWNA (Power Washers of North America) and the UAMCC. On your property we work to your safety program — orientation, permits, lockout/tagout, PPE rules and your JSA. We carry $2M in general liability.

Sandblasting Cost in Arkansas

We publish starting rates so you can budget before you call. Production work on flat plate, tank shells and concrete is priced per square foot blasted, plus mobilization. Structural steel, equipment and other complex shapes are priced by the rig-day. Spent-media disposal and any lift or scaffold are separate lines on the quote. Spot work is quoted per job.

No production-rig job is less than the $5,950 minimum.

What changes the price: the prep standard on your spec; surface condition, including coating thickness, pitting and mill scale; access, lifts and height; the containment your site requires; how much area your primer crew can coat per shift; dew point and weather days; night or weekend hours; and distance from Conway. Rates are blast only. Priming and painting steel are by others. Blasting contracts of $50,000 or more are done as a subcontractor under a licensed Arkansas commercial contractor. The production rig costs the same to deliver, set up and run for 200 square feet as for 2,000, which is why rig jobs carry a minimum. We walk the site and send a written, line-item quote.

Choosing a Sandblasting Company

Whoever you hire, ask the sandblasting contractor five things before work starts: which SSPC surface-preparation grade they will blast to, how they will contain dust and spent media, where the spent abrasive goes and who pays to dispose of it, how they will protect the steel from flash rust before primer, and whether the price is per square foot or per rig-day. A commercial sandblasting quote that cannot answer those questions is usually the one that costs more by the end of the job.

How a Sandblasting Job Runs

Sandblasting in Little Rock, Conway and Across Arkansas

Sandblasting in Little Rock and North Little Rock: the Port of Little Rock industrial area, the plants and shops along the I-30 and I-40 corridors, and the fabrication and trucking yards around them are within about 45 minutes of our Conway yard, so site walks are quick to schedule and spot work rarely needs a second trip. Sandblasting in Conway: this is our home base, so Conway, Morrilton, Greenbrier and Vilonia jobs have the shortest travel time of anywhere in the state.

Our yard is in Conway, and our commercial and industrial work covers all of Arkansas. That includes Central Arkansas from Little Rock to Benton and Cabot; Fort Smith, the River Valley and Northwest Arkansas; Jonesboro and the Delta; and South Arkansas from Pine Bluff and El Dorado to Camden and East Camden, including Highland Industrial Park. Production blasting means mobilizing a towable rig, so we group nearby sites into one trip.

Sandblasting — Questions We Get

Related Services

• Industrial Cleaning & Coating Services
• Industrial Tank Cleaning — storage, process and frac tanks
• Industrial Pressure Washing & Hot Water Degreasing
• Industrial Epoxy Floor Coatings
• Secondary Containment Coatings
• Warehouse Floor Marking
• Commercial Concrete Cleaning