Method for removing coating material from a cooling hole of a gas turbine engine component

A process for laser drilling to remove coating material from obstructed cooling holes of a gas turbine component comprising:

• providing a CNC component program for a CNC which controls a laser and a motion system, wherein the motion system adjusts for the relative position, distance and angle of the laser to the component and the CNC component program is preprogrammed with the general location of the cooling holes for said component;
• preparing the component to be coated with a coating material;
• utilizing the CNC component program to move a machine vision system and the component relative to each other to each cooling hole location for a series of cooling holes of the component based on the preprogrammed general location and determining the actual location for each of said cooling holes and storing in the memory of the CNC or a data storage device the actual locations of the cooling holes for the series of cooling holes;
• coating the component with the coating material with the coating material obstructing the cooling holes;
• and
• followed by laser drilling based on the actual locations of the cooling holes stored in the memory of the CNC or the storage device to remove the coating material obstructing the cooling holes for the series of cooling holes.