Finally! A sunny, warm Spring day, T-shirt weather. I got to work in the shop for a spell today. Finished assembly on my bead-blasting cabinet; cut two legs with ball casters off an old TV stand, and bolted them to the left-side legs on the blaster cabinet. With ball-bearing lawnmower wheels on the other pair of legs, it is now readily mobile. Also bolted two lengths of 1" square steel tubing to the cabinet, so they extend out a foot to the left side, and screwed a piece of 3/8" plywood down on top of the overhanging ends. Gives me a handle to roll it around by, as well as a handy shelf for putting work pieces on.
I dumped in about a half gallon of fine glass bead abrasive, and climbed aboard the learning curve. First thing I learned is that Chinese hose clamps are crappy. Both ends of the internal pressure hose to the gun blew off the barbs where I'd clamped them. Some good domestic hose clamps cured that.
I'm pretty pleased with its performance. The two 100 watt semi-reflector bulbs work well, and provide adequate light, and with the shop vac connected to the vent system, the atmosphere inside the cabinet stays clear enough that I can see my work OK. One unforeseen difficulty: using it outside, sunlight/sky light shining on the window washes out the view of the interior. I turned the cabinet so the window faced the sun, and wore a cowboy hat to shade the part of the window in front of my face. That worked pretty well, but some sort of light shade over the cabinet would be better.
From time to time, the siphon feed would get plugged by moisture or debris, but simply blocking the nozzle with a gloved finger, and pulling the trigger on the gun will blow back the siphon and clear the clog. No biggie. My 5 HP compressor JUST keeps up with the air demand; stop a session of blasting, and the compressor cycles off a few seconds later.
I managed to clean: an M16 starter, a Weasel intake/exhaust manifold, an M16 governor body, and a complete brake set for a disc brake Studebaker including calipers, rotors, dust shields, drums, and backing plates and shoes, etc.
The bead blaster is best for fairly small, intricate parts. Large simple surfaces like the brake rotors and drums are tedious to do in there. In the end, I laid out the drums, rotors, dust shields and backing plates on the grass, and went over them with the pressure-pot sandblaster. That puppy takes rust and paint off large areas quickly, but it doesn't handle small intricate stuff well, so it really complements the bead blast cabinet. Any spots on the large parts that I missed with sandblaster, I can touch up in the cabinet. The calipers cleaned up beautifully in the cabinet, as did all the small brake hardware. Needless to say, I will open up and clean any glass bead out of the caliper and wheel cylinders.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way things worked out.
I'm going to have to go over the beadblast cabinet with clear silicone seal or duct tape, and plug a number of tiny leaks. That glass bead trickles out just like water when it finds a leak.
Gord (gritty) Richmond