Strip. Clean. Prep. Laser surface preparation for painting, coating, welding, bonding and refinishing. The commercial question is never really whether it will clean something. It is whether the surface it leaves behind is the surface your next process was specified for.
Laser processing can provide a controlled method of removing suitable coatings and contamination as part of a surface-preparation process. Application testing and the requirements of the subsequent coating, bonding or welding process should determine the final preparation method.
That sentence is doing a lot of work, so it is worth unpacking rather than glossing. A pulsed fibre laser is a removal step. It can potentially remove or reduce rust, mill scale, oxides, coatings, oils, greases, release agents and other contamination ahead of a subsequent process, depending on the material, the contaminant and the parameters used. What it does not do is decide, on its own, whether the result meets the specification you are working to. Your coating datasheet does that.
How readily each of those comes away depends on the substrate underneath it, the thickness and chemistry of what is on top, the machine configuration and the operator’s technique. Two jobs that look identical in a photograph can behave completely differently.
This is the part most suppliers skip, and it is the part that decides whether a machine earns its keep in a coating shop.
The honest commercial case is rarely "it is faster". It is usually one of four things: there is no media to contain, recover and dispose of; the work can happen in situ, in an occupied building or alongside other trades; the process is selective enough to stop at a repair line or clean a joint without touching the parent material; or it is repeatable and can be documented, which matters when a client or an inspector asks what was done.
Set against that, blasting is still quicker over a large open plate and always will be, chemical stripping still reaches undercut detail that light cannot, and deep pitting still needs a mechanical pass. A laser earns its place where the constraint is containment, access, selectivity or documentation rather than raw square metres.
The questions worth answering before you buy anything: what is the substrate, and what is its condition beneath the contamination? What exactly is being removed, and how thick is it? What process follows, and what surface condition does its specification actually require? What are you doing today, and what does that cost in time, consumables, containment and disposal? Send us those four answers and we will tell you honestly where a laser sits, including when the answer is that it does not.
Preparation is the application where power usually decides commercial viability, because the constraint is throughput rather than delicacy. The 300W is genuinely the right machine for detail, joinery and light component work, and we will say so where that is the case. But for structural steel, larger fabrications, production volumes and anything quoted by the day, the 500W is the machine most commercial operators settle on, and it is where the numbers usually start working. Above that, the 1000W and up are plant, marine and infrastructure territory. You do not need the full amount in the bank: commercial finance is available subject to approval.
Applications
The trades where preparation, not cleaning, is what is being bought.
Which machine
Preparation work is usually decided by how much surface you process in a day. The 500W is the commercial choice where that number sets your rates.
All prices exclude VAT, freight, import charges and UK mainland delivery, which are quoted at the point of purchase.
Machine finance is available to UK businesses through an FCA-regulated broker. Limited companies can be funded on any machine; sole traders only above £25,000. Check whether you qualify → LaserStrip is not a lender. See also the Business Launch package.
Further reading
Standards and guidance
A pulsed fibre laser is a Class 4 device. These are the primary UK sources, linked so you can read them rather than take our word for it. Our own measured results, including the combinations that did not work, are in the surface ablation database.
Common questions
It is the use of a pulsed fibre laser as the removal step ahead of another process: painting, coating, welding, bonding or refinishing. Laser processing can provide a controlled method of removing suitable coatings and contamination as part of a surface-preparation process. Application testing and the requirements of the subsequent process should determine the final preparation method.
Not by itself, and we would not claim otherwise. A laser is a removal process rather than a profiling one. If your coating specification calls for a particular anchor pattern achieved by abrasive blasting, laser preparation does not produce that, and you should read the coating datasheet before assuming it replaces the blast stage rather than reducing it.
No preparation method can. Adhesion depends on the whole system: the substrate, its condition, the preparation, the primer, the coating and the conditions it is applied in. What a laser can do is deliver a clean, dry, media-free surface consistently and repeatably. Whether that meets your specification is a question for the coating manufacturer.
Sometimes it reduces or removes the blast stage; sometimes it sits alongside one, or ahead of a lighter sweep blast; and on large open plate, blasting remains faster and is likely to stay that way. Which applies depends on your substrate, your contamination and the specification you are working to. It is a genuine question rather than a sales one.
It can potentially remove or reduce rust, mill scale and oxides from steel, and this is one of the more common commercial uses. Heavily pitted corrosion is a known limitation: light clears the surface and the mouth of a pit but cannot reach deep inside one, so badly pitted sections usually need a mechanical pass afterwards.
It is used to remove oxide, heat tint, oils and contamination at the joint before welding or bonding, and the selectivity is the attraction: you can clean a weld preparation without abrading the parent material or introducing media into the joint. As with everything here, the qualification requirements of your welding procedure decide what is acceptable, not the equipment supplier.
The range starts at £6,650 + VAT for the 200W and runs to £73,400 + VAT for the 2000W, with the 300W at £7,800 and the 500W at £16,900. Prices exclude VAT, freight, import charges and UK mainland delivery, which are quoted at the point of purchase. For most preparation work the 500W is the commercial choice. Business finance is available to UK businesses through an FCA-regulated broker, subject to status.
Usually not. Send us the substrate, the contaminant and the specification you are working to, and we will tell you what we have measured on comparable work, then recommend and quote the machine. For a large production application with a tightly defined specification we can arrange a sample test before purchase, but that is reserved for where the specification genuinely warrants it rather than a step every buyer goes through.
Application enquiry
Tell us what you are trying to remove and what is underneath it. We will tell you honestly whether a laser is the right tool, where it would sit in your existing process, and which machine would suit. If conventional preparation is the better answer for your job, we will say so.
We reply within one business day. Your details are never shared.