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What Should I Get for A Media /Sand Blaster
- Thread starter Upstate
- Start date
not with anything I own.. but yeah, I ran my bud's fancy equipment once on a boat bottom.. the tech is ok.. it's a semi-ghey thing in boating, but that's a different kettle of fish...
it works ok, a bit slow, environmentally friendly, doesn't give ya sand death lung.. it's a light cut, takes awhile... leaves about a 220 grit finish... you can do it dry or wet... obviously dry for a vehicle..
it works ok, a bit slow, environmentally friendly, doesn't give ya sand death lung.. it's a light cut, takes awhile... leaves about a 220 grit finish... you can do it dry or wet... obviously dry for a vehicle..
yeah, it's ok.. it's all the rage these days.. i think they use it a bunch for removing graffiti too..... it's usually a bit more money obviously, whether hired out, or DIY....
78 Bonanza
1/2 ton status
Blasting
When I was running the restoration shop I used soda on all the bodies as it does not cause the heat warpage that other media can. You can blast over chrome without even hurting it and do plastic, fiberglass, etc. I used to use a fairly rough glass bead for frames and undercarriage as I wanted the primer and paint to have something to bite into. The soda is just more forgiving. If you cause warping the first time you will never forget the body work that comes afterwards. Not to mention taking the structural strength from the already thin body panels. Just make sure you find a good neutralizer after you use the soda as it will affect paint and body work. I think Eastwood is carrying a two phase system now. I've used their blasters before and for the money they work pretty well. I think they even carry everthing you will need and have a data sheet on their blasting media. Check them out and let me know what you find. Hope this helps. And as always this is just my opinion and take it as you will. Best to you and yours.
When I was running the restoration shop I used soda on all the bodies as it does not cause the heat warpage that other media can. You can blast over chrome without even hurting it and do plastic, fiberglass, etc. I used to use a fairly rough glass bead for frames and undercarriage as I wanted the primer and paint to have something to bite into. The soda is just more forgiving. If you cause warping the first time you will never forget the body work that comes afterwards. Not to mention taking the structural strength from the already thin body panels. Just make sure you find a good neutralizer after you use the soda as it will affect paint and body work. I think Eastwood is carrying a two phase system now. I've used their blasters before and for the money they work pretty well. I think they even carry everthing you will need and have a data sheet on their blasting media. Check them out and let me know what you find. Hope this helps. And as always this is just my opinion and take it as you will. Best to you and yours.
mrwilliamsburg33
1/2 ton status
Harbor Freight: 40 lb or 110 lb?
Don't use actual sand for blasting. Media like Aluminum Oxide has been dried and processed spicifically for blasting. Also think of blasting media as little tiny sharp edged rocks. As they wear, they don't cut as good and heat increases as they get dull and can cause warping if pressure is too high.
Carbides last much longer and cuts quicker then other media, but is more expensive. Aluminum oxide is very affordable yet cuts very well with good cut life too. glass bead media is for cleaning without material removal.
Sounds like your just using blasting for general purpose use, I would use Al Ox in about 60/80 grit. As was said a pressure pot is the only way to go. If your blasting outside try and set up a tent of plastic if you can to reclaim the media. With only the one use it's still very good media you don't want to waste. Walnut media and light duty non agressive media is for parts you don't want material removal and little to no heat generated into the part that might cause warpage.
Carbides last much longer and cuts quicker then other media, but is more expensive. Aluminum oxide is very affordable yet cuts very well with good cut life too. glass bead media is for cleaning without material removal.
Sounds like your just using blasting for general purpose use, I would use Al Ox in about 60/80 grit. As was said a pressure pot is the only way to go. If your blasting outside try and set up a tent of plastic if you can to reclaim the media. With only the one use it's still very good media you don't want to waste. Walnut media and light duty non agressive media is for parts you don't want material removal and little to no heat generated into the part that might cause warpage.
British Slave
1/2 ton status
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Do the 40 pound Harbor Freight blaster, then add the Eastwood soda blaster conversion kit. Best of both worlds. It becomes a pick your abrasive.
If you just do small parts and it's been working for you, then I would say no, don't bother. But if you're doing larger parts that fit in your blast cabinet for say rattle can painting or home powder coating and it's taking forever I would say yes, sell your siphon unit and get a pressure pot type cabinet. Or convert yours to pressure pot unit.
Pressure pot style units blast at I would say three to four times as fast as a syphon unit. You lose alot of air flow force with a syphon unit since it has to suck the grit up a small tube, hence the reason they require ALOT of CFM out of an air compressor where as a pressure pot runs at say 40 to 60 psi and blasts at 3/4 times faster.
There are a few types of pressure pot cabinets out there. One has the pressure pot as the bottom of the cabinet as part of the unit. Once the grit is empty you step on a pedal and it dumps the grit back into the pot. This is the best style available.
Another one is a stand alone pot where you have to fill the pot and it feeds into the cabinet. Again, once empty you have to step on the pedal or how ever it's configured, open the bottom of the blast cabinet, dump the grit and shovel it back into the pressure pot, then start blasting again.
For doing outside blasting a stand alone pressure pot for say a frame is what you would want to use. I would tent it off, so I could reclaim the grit with a shovel and reuse it. Good grit is not cheap.
A real high end pressure pot type cabinet has a seperation vacume on it too. Since what gets blasted off is lighter then the grit it sucks the lighter particulate out of the air inside the cabinet so it does not get mixed with the grit, the grit falls to the bottom of the funnel ready to be dumped back into the pressure pot once empty. Without a seperator it looses some of its cutting capacity as the grit gets diluted with blasted particulate ie rust, paint etc. For home use, it's not a big deal at all really. Only problem with these units is they have a big foot print, are for industrial use and require 220V power.
At the last machine shop I worked at, it was a hi-tech coating company. We had 14 grit blast cabinets from small 36W X 24D to full 10' W X 20'D X 10' H walk in blast building. The walk in used an external pressure pot that took about 200lbs of grit so we didn't have to keep filling it every 5 minutes. If full we could blast for about 20 mins.
Our smaller cabinets were all built in pressure pot units, some with vacume seperators and some without. The ones without were for "dirty" blasting/cleaning. Our other cabinets with seperators also had timers on the cabinets so once the grit had been used for a determined amount of time the machine would shut off and the grit had to be changed and the timer reset. Old grit would not give the required surface finish pre coating application.
Also, whats being blasted off for aircraft and aerospace parts is contamination. The grit can become contaminated and if not seperated the part being blasted can have particulate imbedded into the part which comprimises the integrity on the addhesion of the coating applied. Our grit blast cabinets were top of the line units, and we used every type of grit on the market.
I had a cabinet at home and would get good used grit free as it was just disposed of after it could not be used anymore. We had 55gal drums of old grit waiting to be hauled away, some good, some not good to use at all. I would bring 5gal buckets and take how ever much I wanted. My boss said it's getting dumped so take what you want. I learned alot about grit blasting at that shop for damn sure.
At the last machine shop I worked at, it was a hi-tech coating company. We had 14 grit blast cabinets from small 36W X 24D to full 10' W X 20'D X 10' H walk in blast building. The walk in used an external pressure pot that took about 200lbs of grit so we didn't have to keep filling it every 5 minutes. If full we could blast for about 20 mins.
Our smaller cabinets were all built in pressure pot units, some with vacume seperators and some without. The ones without were for "dirty" blasting/cleaning. Our other cabinets with seperators also had timers on the cabinets so once the grit had been used for a determined amount of time the machine would shut off and the grit had to be changed and the timer reset. Old grit would not give the required surface finish pre coating application.
Also, whats being blasted off for aircraft and aerospace parts is contamination. The grit can become contaminated and if not seperated the part being blasted can have particulate imbedded into the part which comprimises the integrity on the addhesion of the coating applied. Our grit blast cabinets were top of the line units, and we used every type of grit on the market.
I had a cabinet at home and would get good used grit free as it was just disposed of after it could not be used anymore. We had 55gal drums of old grit waiting to be hauled away, some good, some not good to use at all. I would bring 5gal buckets and take how ever much I wanted. My boss said it's getting dumped so take what you want. I learned alot about grit blasting at that shop for damn sure.
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