Glass Beads blasting ( Shot Blasting ) gives a smooth satin finish on metallic surface without any removal of base metal. Glass Beads blasting is fast replacing sand blasting as a preferred method for surface finishing due to its consistency in size and shape. Further, sand blasting might lead to silicosis’ as a consequence of free silica in sand which is a fatal respiratory disease. Thus though it is still used in most parts of the country due to lack of knowledge and low cost, a complete shift to any other media is paramount.
Shot peening is a surface strengthening process by introducing compressive stresses on the surface to prevent crack generation and propagation. It is fairly new and further studies need to be carried out in this field.

For smaller components where glass beads blasting is tricky, vibro finishing using glass beads is used.