Quick answer: Shot blasting removes contaminants and prepares surfaces for coating, while shot peening is a controlled process that improves fatigue life by inducing compressive stress—often with carefully selected steel shot.
What is shot blasting?
Shot blasting propels abrasive media at a surface to clean rust, scale, and residues and to create a profile for coating adhesion. It is a cleaning and preparation process used across fabrication and foundry work.
What is shot peening?
Shot peening bombards a metal surface with spherical media under controlled intensity and coverage to improve fatigue resistance. Springs, gears, and aerospace/auto components commonly require peening.
Which media is used?
Both processes can use steel shot. Peening usually needs well-controlled spherical media and stable size distribution. Blasting may also use grit when aggressive cutting is required.
How should buyers decide?
If your goal is cleaning or paint prep, you need blasting parameters. If your drawing calls for peening intensity/coverage, you need a peening setup and media matched to that specification.
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