sand blaster

[danthedewman1]

Thinking of buying ,,or renting a sand blaster .Might try the underside of my car first,and was wondering whats the best material to use in the blaster?..thanks.

 

[sweatybetty]

i used green nickle slag. pretty agressive and fairly cheap. about $6 for 100 lb bag. i also was able to sweep it up and reuse most of it a few times. just strain it through a piece of window screen first. to get the big chunks of stuff out

 

[doug 371]

i usually use #4 silica

 

[redfastback]

aluminum oxide is good too. it helps remove rust from steel and leave a decent smooth surface.

 

[howco4]

Good subject: I'm a week or two away from trying to remove paint from my firewall. I've wondered how well the cheap blasters work. I've seen prices from $45.00 to $1000 on a new blaster. Trying to compare the cost to what it would cost at a blasting service. I just had my hood, trunk, doors, and fenders done. The price was $365.00 Anyone had any experience with these things? Howard

 

[F&J]

First, you need a pressure blaster, not a siphon feed type, if you are doing a lot of area. Plus pressure type uses less CFM.

Then you need a lot of CFM or else a tiny nozzle. Tiny nozzles will keep the pressure up on a small compressor to clean rust pits quicker. Lower pressures will do fine for paint. Small nozzles do get plugged easy, so use a strainer or screen when filling the tank.

If you are trying to clean out rust pitted metal really clean, a finer grit of sand is best, coarser is much quicker on multiple layers of paint.

If you can't save the used sand like in a cabinet, then you can't afford the fancy abrasives. White quartz in fine grit is good & sharp for pits, but is the most expensive "sand". There are cheaper grades of sand that are tan. A friend of mine who has blasted for years, just tried "sand box sand" from Home depot or walmart and said it's cheaper than the low grade blasting sand, and works good if you strain it first.

There's also "black beauty" a by-product of steel making, cheaper but needs to be strained real good and is better used on paint than rust.

A siphon feed might be ok for small area that's not rusty, but they do waste sand & air compared to pressure blasters. One last thing, all undercoat, grease & sealers need to be scraped off first to save a lot of time & sand.

Messy job no matter how you do it....but someone has to.....

 

[howco4]

Looks like it may be worth my time and money to drag my car to the blast facility. I like do it youself projects, but all I have left to do is the firewall. The logic of buying one for limited use may not be there. F&J has some good info for the novice blaster. Howard

 

[USCG CHARGER]

http://www.sodablastcars.com/ This is who's doing my soda blasting on the 68 Cuda. I think the clean up is gonna be the biggest issue w/this.