Budget Sandblaster - Machine mart - Views

Yes i've got one - don't use it now, cos i have a shot blasting cabenet. the only thing against them realy is the amount of waste and mess, i would thing you would get through a lot of material on your wheels.

Gary

Lee_D wrote:

Would a bucket of sand do the trick to be swept up and re used or would that promptly jam it with paint debris? Is this how the cabinetes work on a recycle basis?

I'm suspecting it's got to be a medium of just the right diameter.

And I'm also midful of harmful dust from the process so any pointers appreciated.

Lee D

I had a go at cleaning one of my wheels up to see how hard it was - they are bronze green underneath!

It wasnt actually that bad. If you take the wheel off and lie it flat on the ground its a lot easier. It didnt take much nitromors. A lot of the camo on mine would just flake off if i ran a screwdriver round the wheel.

Probably.

Yes.

But what size reciever? I use a 3HP/150L reciever, and it has to run flat out to run one of these:

Yes, enough media to do your wheels will probably cost the same as the purchase price of the gun, you NEED protective gear (it is horrible stuff and gets EVERYWHERE). A sandblaster hood will probably cost more than twenty quid, and then you'll need new lenses for it all the time (depending on what kind of work you're doing - fine sandblasting and you'll go through more peering at the work you're doing, rough stuff you'll be further away.

It's one tool that was bought to do more stuff in-house and speed things up for me, but since gettting it I've used it a few times and came to the conclusion that it's no good unless:

1) You can get media cheaply (don't expect to reuse it) 2) You can make a real mess somewhere and then clean it up easily (that'll probably not be an issue for you if you have block paving, I don't, I did outside on the dirt) 3) You have a large reciever for you air compressor (I'm not convinced by air tools minimum requirements, they're generally a bit on the "might just work side" rather than the "works OK with side"

Regards

William MacLeod

"Sand" is probably illegal these days, the media is usually glass bead or carborundum. Recycling in a cabinet is either by a cyclone system, or in the cheap end, just using a well filtered wet/dry vacuum cleaner to suck out the finer shit as it is suspended in the air in the cabinet.

Its actually not spectacularly sensitive to grit size, obviously you can't shoot pea gravel or 5000 grit, but bigger media can still be lifted if you turn the wick up.

Steve

I used nitromors on my motorbike wheels with tubes and tyres still on. Shortly after I got back on the road I got a flat, the tube had deteriorated round the valve :O(

Ooh. i shall be careful with the rest of them then! (The one i did is currently the spare). Perhaps getting the tyres taken off first would be a good idea!

I lashed out on an attachment for my high pressure water washer which uses a venturi to suck dry sand up into the water and blast it. Its a lot safer than dry blast medium which really needs some serious respiratory protection for you, family and neighbours. Sand is absolutely out of the question because of the risk of silicosis, I'm not sure that you can buy canister type filters for silica - usually you have to have an external clean air supply if blasting sand.

Most of the Karcher type washers now sell the attachments.

The other advantage of wet blasting is that its easy to clean up, you dont get dust everywhere and its nowhere near as noisy either.

I tried the air grit blasters - pressure is not an issue with most compressors - volume is the main issue. Grit blasters use LARGE amounts of air and the average home compressor is not upto the task.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll give it a miss re the air blasting but I have to say I'm interested in the karcha type jet wash attachment.. if only for the oil stains.

I've now done 3 wheels (yesterday) with nitromors and repainted them. Two left to do. I have avoided the valve areas as much as humanly possible.

Compressor I have would have been fine, it's all the other kit and kaboodle that has put me off. For my needs the total costs once you add in the gear and the medium would outweigh the benifit of owning my own stuff for as often as I wouls use it. I'm glad I asked as it's saved me a few quid :0)

Lee D

On or around Tue, 21 Jun 2005 07:58:16 GMT, "Roger & Lorraine Martin" enlightened us thusly:

I assume it uses a different lance, can't see sand doing the water nozzle much good.

what sort of money was it? sounds a useful piece of kit.

It has replaceable sand nozzles, I made up some more on the lathe and a quick dip in some case hardening compound. But they do wear fairly quickly. The water nozzle is before the venturi for the sand so does nt get sand through it.

Price - well in Aus it is no doubt 2 to 3 times more expensive than in the UK.

perhaps.

Have you tried using it yet? My experience with one was that it was hopeless. With the amount of water spraying around, you almost inevitably get some in the "dry" sand you're trying to blast with. Result: clog. Or you get a single oversize particle of sand, the nozzle clogs, and water gets pushed back into the sand feed tube. The only thing to do is to wash it out and wait for it to dry completely. Then do the same again. And again. Then put it on ebay.

Hmmm. A sand slurry everywhere.

you get wet, abrasive grit in every orifice. It's like being at Criccieth in May.

Compared with a 140cfm diesel compressor and a proper grit blast gun, true.

Now we do agree. The cheapo suction-fed blasters that claim to work off

3hp compressors achieve this by having a tiny nozzle, so apart from the clogging and (if you persist long enough) wear problems, the snag is that they clean strips well under 1/4" wide - slowly.

Sorry Austin, I have to agree with the Borg here.

Steve

I must be doing something right - never had any of the above problems. I put a plastic lid on the sand bucket - 40litre container - to keep it dry. The instructions for the lance advise on keeping it pointed down when not spraying to drain water from the nozzle. Also to use a tie wrap to hold the suction pipe parallel to the lance. The instructions refer to the problems you had - but say to close the sand valve before releasing the trigger on the lance making sure there is no sand in the tube.

I setup a small area for sand blasting - using a piece of aluminium mesh that came off a security door, put this on a few bricks to get it off the ground so that the sand "drains" away. Not that messy, but I wear a plastic apron and face shield - which beats wearing a tyvec suit, hood and having an external clean air supply coming from somewhere with a compressor type blaster.

In article , Roger & Lorraine Martin writes

Shock, horror! something useful and cheap in B+Q! I discovered they were selling a 'universal' sand blasting attachment for pressure washers for about 18 quid, IIRC. Same idea as above, but has adaptors for all the standard systems, including my Kaarcher.

I bought it, and the guys recommended washed, dried paving sand to use with it - fine grain, regular size, and dry+clean, and about 2.50/bag.

I haven't got to the bit of the house that needs masonry paint splashes removing yet - wot I got it for. I don't know either if the system (venturi for dry sand ???!!?) works reliably, and it looks like the the tube is prone to flattening (but could easily be replaced). All in all, I thought it worth a punt.

Will report back on success/failure, but I'm trying it on Marge's bottom LAST, after I've played with it a bit first. Don't want to be painting over blasted-in sand...

Regards,

Simonm.

In article , Austin Shackles writes

Yes: see other post. I've just looked on the B+Q site, and can't find it, but it was a universal B+Q accessory, not a Kaarcher one. I bought it around March this year, but haven't yet used it.

Regards,

Simonm.