e.g. is wet better than dry, does wet recycle the grit (dry spreads it all over the damn' place)...
that sort of thing.
I could do with a better way of cleaning up cycle frames prior to painting, including removing weld flux and so forth.
The dry thing I have is one of those cheap small "spot" ones, it's not much good, although better than nowt - but it's next-to-impossible to recover more than about 50% of the grit.
I have a spot one - ok for spots and nothing else! I have a hand held one looking like a spray gun - useless ! I have a cabinet one - excellent if the workshop compressor can keep up I have a full size Hodge Clemco capable of stripping a bridge - absolutely excellent with a 140 CFM road compressor
"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
I bought a wet sand blasting lance for my Karcher lookalike maybe 5 years ago and its as good as any dry blaster but without the really horrible health risks from all the dust and paint particles.
The nozzles wear out pretty quickly, but I'm a cheap bastard and use locally available sand - I live on a sand island. I have to wash the sand first as it has a lot of salt in it, then let it sun dry for a few days.
For smaller parts I put them on a piece of steel mesh which is kept off the ground on bricks, which keeps the sand cleaning the part and not just hitting the ground.
Afterwards you have to wash and wash and wash the parts again with high pressure hot soapy water to get rid of any small bits of silicon left on the surface. I learnt that the hard way after painting a door only to have rust break out within about 2 weeks.
Safety gear - face visor - not goggles, full length wet weather gear or a full length plastic apron.
Haven't you got any powder coating places local to you? I usually send stuff in and just get it blasted so that I can prime and paint it myself. They don't charge much for just the blasting without painting.
When I was out on the streets I used to get around to all sorts of industrial units and this is the sort of stuff I'd find not actually looking for it.
One of the few things I miss about driving my desk.
I don't go too often so as not to make a nuisance of myself but I could get you some sorted I'm sure if you're not too far away, they don't charge too much. Old bike frames and tinware is what I usually take. I don't think it's much more for the coating as well but I prefer to prime and paint myself though it can be a PITA.
The worst sort of all are pressure washer attachments that claim to entrain dry sand into a jet of water. It is impossible to keep the sand dry long enough. The slightest nozzle blockage causes water to push back into the sand tube, and it's a pita to get it all dry and clean again. Then just when you think it's starting to work, you bounce a jet of sandy water straight back into your bucket/bag/hermetically- (so you thought) sealed sand container.
I saw some results from
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at the Classic Motor Show at the weekend - impressive, but you're looking at £1500-£2000 to have a bare car bodyshell stripped, or £3000 for the equipment, plus whatever a diesel compressor costs. Then £200 worth of sodium bicarbonate for one bodyshell. As Andrew says, there's no getting away from the fact that you need a lot of air and either a big blast cabinet, or somewhere well away from the neighbours.
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