When i was a teen ager @ 70 years ago , my mother had a cast iron pot she wanted cleaned . I scrubbed that $&^%#@! pot with a brick til i was numb ! One day Isaid "Mom , if you want that pot clean make a gallon of lemonade " . The guys blasting the bridge down the road made that pot SHINE !
I have had extensive experience blasting, both cabinet and open hose. One thing that is important is to direct your media slowly over your part and make sure to get a consistent color to your surface. For steel and ferrous parts it is very helpful to use phosphoric acid to treat the objects you are cleaning.The acid gets into the microscopic pores of the metal and creates a very good surface for paint to adhere. The acid and a good scrubbing ensures that you will have no problems with rust for a very long time.
You don't need to use acid if you blast it properly with your extensive knowledge you would know this...your wasting money and time you need 100psi and as much flow as possible (cfm) you match the cfm with the nozzle and pipe od to achieve 100psi 👍
I have a HF sand blaster. About 15+ years old. It's served me well. I run either glass beads or 80 grit aluminum oxide. Would like a second sand blaster to keep both media types ready for immediate use. You were removing yellow chromate from the new bolts and likely the zinc layer under the chromate. The chromate is the first protective sacrificial coating on top the zinc layer. I have the Caswell plating system and do all my own small zinc, chromate, copper and nickel replating on all my home projects. I also use my 2 stage 80 gallon 5 hp Ingersal-Rand air compressor. It does a great job with the duty cycle. May have to take your lead and create an outdoor blasting system similar to yours. Thanks for sharing!
I had not seen a sandblaster in operation and greatly appreciate you doing this video. I am sure this is routine stuff for you, but for novices like me this was very informative. Thanks for posting.
Hi Toby, great stuff as always, something we found helpful for the hardware sandblasting is to use an old style coffee can. Cut both the top and bottom off and using a large hose clamp, secure a coarse metal screen to the bottom. Just shake it a bit as you blast into it and it works pretty good. It also saves the gloves from burning holes in them.
I'm very glad you mention the sand blasting grit getting in where we dont want it. We've all looked at nice tractors that have been blasted and painted, I've cringed about that for a long time. A few yrs back I worked on a $500 carb that had grit in the main jet. I was not amused.
Yep unfortunately my Caterpillar Ten is like that - the previous restoration that was done to it was a full sandblast and paint while fully assembled, and I've since found that everything now has a gritty paste inside that resembles valve grinding compound. That's why that little crawler never makes its way out of the shed, because now I have to do a complete tear-down and cleanout to it.
Many years ago my brother and I made a blast cabinet out of a cardboard box, plexiglass for a window, an old flannel shirt and heavy rubber gloves and duct tape. All stuff we had laying around. It worked good especially in the winter being in the garage instead of the tarp in the driveway lol
My fam and I have a sandblasting company and have been doing it for 30 years now. Your setup is great for the hobbyist and you are doing it all the way we would do it but on a larger scale. Our media consumption is usually around 5 gallons every 12 to 15 minutes and when you're under the hood, it seems like it goes by in an instant. Hardest part for me is the cleanup since sand/grit/media gets everywhere and is heavy, so a lot of elbow grease and patience is a must. Great job!
Yup ! Knew a guy who sandblasted a JD G, and painted it. He got a lesson. I do tend to scan the comments. I had noticed that some questions boomerang. Never seen the front weights on a H, or M but this ground is easy to work. Thank you.
We bought a big sandblasting pot a few years ago to run off of our 175cfm diesel compressor and it’s definitely the best thing ever. A lot cheaper than hiring anyone else and a lot more comfortable in spraying my own paint and making sure the rust is off. But the dust and grit is definitely not fun to deal with.
Outdoor sanding…in aircraft maintenance we use a product called staticide it keeps static from building up on body so we can go inside inlets for inspections. It’s also a wonderful way to repel the sand when outdoor sand blasting and it’s inexpensive.
When I winterized the sprinkler systems for my family I used multiple compressors and extra storage tanks. I also used 3/8 or 1/2 id air hoses and 1/2 inch air couplings to minimize air flow restriction. The last step was using truck airbrake hoses because they had larger ID's in the 1/4 inch hose ends. It is amazing how much more air they flow with less restrictions. I also used them for whip hoses on air tools.
I personally like using a pressure washer to sandblast, a 3300psi+ pressure washer is cheaper than a large air compressor and the water eliminates the dust
I also want to add if you are buying a cabinet, the newer cheaper ones, to cut costs have taken the light out. YOU WANT TO HAVE A LIGHT. It gets really hard to see without one
Agreed, I even turn the shop lights off when using the cabinet to make the most of the interior light, because even with the vacuum hooked up it can still be difficult to see through all the dust that is flying around 👍
Although sand blasting is very effective, I use electrolysis on my rusty stuff. It's less messy and allows me to work on other stuff while my parts are in the tank. It also reaches the inaccessible areas, removes both rust and paint, and the parts come out like new. But as always, everyone has their preferred methods. I have a Wel-bilt horizontal band saw made in Taiwan that works really well. Thanks for sharing your setup Squatch!
I’ve built scaffold under rail bridges so they can be blasted, and I’d say I got more dirty taking it down then the blaster did when he was blasting the railway bridge
IMHO it don’t matter (to a certain degree) take care of your equipment store it properly no reason it won’t last *** mileage may differ per owner 🤣🤣🤣 ✌️
Thanks for the video, Squatch Shot blasting is kind of therapeutic, turning rusty metal shiny (ish) again It's the clean up afterwards that's a pain (human included)
Looks like if you set a sheet of plywood across the front where you were standing, it would help contain a majority of the sand kicking back on your legs and feet. You could also stack up like 3 window screens with a 2 or three in gap about a foot below the grate. Again this would be a crude filter that would allow sand to fall through but less likely to bounce back out. Very simple, but would serve to contain a higher percentage of sand to aid cleanup and recycling, while also reducing the airborne shower of particles. Nothing is going to catch all of it but if you can knock it down to I'd guess about 75% it would be a lot more comfortable.
The PPE is no joke. When I was about 18 or 19 I was using a blaster just like that one and disconnected my air line when I was done. Young and dumb me had put my gloves away and also forgotten to close the air valve going to the top and then bleed off the air in the blaster. I just disconnected my air hose. In roughly 1 second my hand was missing the skin from half of my hand and everything under it looked like it was seasoned with pepper. 6 months later there were still pieces working up to the surface.
Thankfully I've never had to find that out myself, but there used to be a local mobile sandblasting guy that did some work for us (X231 back when we had it blasted as a still-rolling chassis) and he showed us a huge scar that extended from the top of his left hand all the way up his forearm and it looked like a burn scar. Turns out he had a failure of his air pressure regulating system one time and when he opened the valve to begin blasting the large line whipped free from his grip and 200+ psi of high pressure sand was injected through his glove and sleeve and embedded in his arm. He was in surgery for 6 hours for them to finally dig all of the sand out of him - it looked horrible.
I use to glass blast v presses . You put on a body suit made of rubber and a face mask that is zippered to your suit . When i was done after an hour i still found glass blast in my wallet .did that job for 2 years .the building was in the far back and it was 30 feet wide and 40 feet long door was 25 feet high .Denis from santa rosa ca
I have screen wire completely covering the underside of my grate in my blast cabinet. It really helps by "screening" out particles that may clog the blast nozzle.
Just picked up an old open pot blaster. Have you compared open vers closed pots? Used it to clean the intake manifold of the car in my profile picture. I've used them before at work, so I knew what I was missing when attempting to get in the tighter areas! Thought about you cleaning parts when I was doing it. LoL 😂😆 Enjoy your quality work in video production and in your shenanigans!
I, too would like to upgrade my air compressor for more horsepower and volume... I have a blast cabinet that was handed down to me from a relative, but it is in sad shape... Would like to replace that too..
You have my thanks for all you do. However, how do you/senior keep everything so clean? And please keep this type of behind the scenes videos coming. and good luck with the eye situation.
The hubs and weights aren’t made to go together on the inside, there is no flat mounting surface in there so with the weights just perched on the inner sloping gussets they’ll be highly prone to loosening up.
Years ago my brother got frustrated with not having enough air for sand blasting. So he built his own air compressor. He used a 500lbs lp tank and three twin air compressor heads that were the size of Harley Davidson engines. The head units were belt driven to a pto drive. He powered it with a M Farmall. Yep never ran out of air then. Ran that M at idle and had to put a pop off valve on the tank.
As someone with extensive blasting cabinet experience if you ever find out how to keep the dust off the operator without wearing a spacesuit let me know
Good to see your process. One question I have is, how do you dispose of the used/spent sand? I would presume that there could be lead residue when cleaning old equipment.
Once it goes through the outdoor pot blaster, most of what we lose just gets pulverized into such fine dust that it floats away, eventually settling somewhere. What we don’t catch on the tarp, just stays on the ground right where it lands 👍
Great video!!! I will now set my blaster just like yours now... what kind of harbor freight sand would you suggest that would be comparable to your black diamond sand?? I don't have a Menards or Northern tool here in NY town?? Just wondering?? I have 10 questions I would really like to ask you??? I found D2 for sale cheap in my area and would like to pick ur brain ..would u mind sharing your email with me ?? Thanks again for the vidd.. very useful 👌...Ray from Colorado.
Friday morning looks like another rain day for both of us whats dad been up to lately bet its something interesting Did u ever get the switch cover put on furnace switch ?
Do you sand blast you light sheet metal if so what do you do to keep from stretching the metal, and does ground walnut steel work for blasting light sheet metal ????
I usually avoid sandblasting very thin metal, but if I do have to sandblast any I’ll run the air pressure down to the 50psi range and also try to use the old, dull sand to prevent blasting holes through the metal.
How long does a tank last before you need to refill (time wise), I believe you said that you got 2 hubs, and half a wieght. Yes HBT does have some, it looks like yours is very comparable to their 20 lb kit, The Cabinet looks to be the same that they have still. both are a different name. Northern tool also has similar products Have you had problems with the nozzles?
It only takes about 10 minutes of steady blasting to empty that 50lb tank, so if you’ve got the nozzle open you’d best be pointing it at something lol 😂 Nozzle wear actually isn’t that bad, we get years of life out of one. The biggest issue we’ve had is cracking them though if we drop it or accidentally bang it into something too hard, but that’s avoidable with a bit of caution 👍
@@squatch253 Reason I asked is looking at some reviews they seem to wear the nozzle out real fast. This could be from type of material (they are using new medium, which is sharp and very aggressive and it sounds like you are using older less sharp and aggressive medium) along with other things.
Because our sandblasting setup still isn’t close to being big enough to do much for production work, and large pieces actually take a lot more time to sandblast because of how many times I have to stop and refill the sand. Plus, wire brushing doesn’t push abrasives into places where I don’t want them to be so the following cleanup process is a lot simpler. In a nutshell, sandblasting is only viable up to a certain sized object, because our setup is actually quite small.
Your media cost has skyrocketed due to everyone saving the Earth. Black Beauty used to be a couple bucks per 50lb bag, it was a waste product (Coal Coke from the power plant, ground up to go through a blaster). Shut down the Coal power plants, no more waste product.
I've found that setting the regulator on the main compressor outlet to 120 psi allows it to maintain an actual 90-ish psi when the airflow is at peak demand, which is where both of these blasters seem to operate the best. But if I turn the compressor regulator down to 90 psi to begin with, I only actually get about 70 psi through the blasters when airflow demand is high.
The outdoor blaster cleans the parts a lot faster than the cabinet due to its greater volume rate. The cabinet is like using a garden hose to fill a kiddie pool, and the pot blaster is like using a fire hose for that same job - each tool has its place and is best suited for different applications 👍
It usually stays in the sandblasting cabinet for about a year, then once it starts getting used in the outdoor blaster I typically lose about 1/4 of a 5-gallon bucket each time I blast a batch of parts, due to it turning into pulverized dust or just flying too far to be collected again.
I dabbled with electrolysis a bit about 15 years ago, but found it to be cumbersome, messy, slow, and maintenance intensive so stopped using it - just my experience, but I know a lot of other folks who swear by it 👍
