Pressure sandblaster?

[Dave Cav]

Has anyone used one of the Harbor Freight variety of pressure
sandblasters? I have an old Unisaw that I am restoring and I need to
blast the cabinet, base and some other parts. Most of the guts will fit
in my blasting cabinet, but not the big pieces. My local media blaster
charges around $75 an hour and they aren't open on Saturdays. In
addition, if I did the blasting at home I could go directly to the
primer coat without having to haul the parts home in the truck, in the
weather, rusting, etc. Comments/suggestions?

Thanks
Dave C

[Gary Breckenridge]

$75 an hour sounds like an ok professional rate. Your next question is how long it will take for a pro to sandblast a tablesaw. How many projects down the road will require you to use your own sandblaster ?:cool:

[James Stokes]

I have one. I do artistic blasting with mine but have used it on getting things ready to paint a few times. I recently sandblasted 4 outdoor metal chairs for a friend of mine, it only took me about an hour and half to blast the chairs and get them ready to paint.

[Mac McQuinn]

I've a friend who owns and uses the small Harbor Freight Soda Blaster. I believe it's priced at $99.00. He does a lot of Motorcycle parts cleaning and I've see the results which are impressive to say the least. Carburetor bodies and side covers look like new when he's done.

Mac

[Tony Bilello]

I recentlt purchased the HF 10 Gal? model. It was on sale for about $77.
I was very impressed with the results. The one thing they dont tell you is to screen the sand first. The small pebbles in the sand block the blast nozzle. Only took about 5 minutes to run the sand through a regular aluminum screen and it works fine and no longer cloggs.
Now that I said it works fine, I still cant speak for the typical 4 to 5 hour lifespan of most HF tools. I have used it for less than an hour total. This is a nice small serious machine. The syphon feed blasters are a complete joke.

[Brian Backner]

I do a LOT of sandblasting, and have done my share of old machine and woodworking tools (currently working on an old SCMI 126" slider that I rescued). Anyway, if you're going to use actual sand for blasting media, you should also factor in the cost of your air filtering system - not for the blaster, but for you! Lung silicosis is no joke and when I have used real silica sand, I go with a compressed air supplied full face mask or helmet with or without an attached jacket/vest system. These are not cheap (figure $1,000 new, and $3-500 used), but they are necessary. For an example see:

http://www.tptools.com/p/389,153_Deluxe-Respirator-System-wandOpti-Fit-Full-Face-Mask.html

Depending on the size of the parts you need to blast, you can also blast much of it inside a bead blast cabinet. See:

http://www.tptools.com/dg/53_Abrasive-Blast-Cabinets.html

If you were wondering, yes, I like TP Tools, but, no I don't work for them!

I kept getting into blasting bigger and bigger things over the years and finally built my own big (8' interior length) cabinet from plywood and lined it with 20 gauge sheet steel and it has worked fine. Think it cost me $3-400 to build, including the two sets of windows and gloves.

Here's a website documenting the building of an incredibly versatile blasting cabinet:

http://davepropst.com/Article/Art5/Article5.htm

Anyway, however you end up blasting, you are correct that you should prime or paint as soon as is practical. I have found that Benjamin Moore makes a decent machinery paint called DTM. It can be used over mild rust as it contains rust inhibitors and is a primer as well as a finish top coating. Even when applied with a brush it levels nicely as long as it's not too hot or cold. It is an alkyd based paint, so it may not be available on the left coast. In Boston it's about $38 a gallon:

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/bmpsweb/portals/bmps.portal?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=contentrenderer_1_10&contentrenderer_1_10_actionOverride=%2Fbm%2Fcms%2F ContentRenderer%2FrenderContent&contentrenderer_1_10cnp=public_site%2Farticles%2Fp roduct_articles%2Fpa_int_metal_coatings_profession al&contentrenderer_1_10np=productcatalog%2Fproduct_pa ges%2Fpaint%2Fprd_z26&_pageLabel=fc_productsspecs

When blasting make sure that you don't blast ANY precision surfaces - shafts, bearing supports, sliding surfaces (ways), or the table top. These surfaces should be masked off (I usually use 4 or 5 layers of duct tape). To clean these surfaces I'll use either WD40 or Starrett M1 oil with 4/0 steel wool and elbow grease. If the table top is really pitted, you may need to consider having it reground - IF you determine that the beast is worth the extra expense. There was a relatively recent thread on the pros/cons of this but I couldn't find it to post the link.

In deciding whether or not to purchase a pressure blaster, I would urge you to consider a number of things:

1. Is your compressor up to the task? If you have to wait several minutes for your compressor to catch up after blasting for only 30 seconds, you're going to get frustrated in short order!

2. Are parts available for the blasting gun? Nozzles will wear out and if you have some no name gun from the far east with an unobtainable part to get it working again, you've paid a lot for a paperweight.

3. Do you have some place to blast safely? If you'll be doing a lot of blasting on your driveway or in the backyard, you need to be at least 10' - 20' is better - away from anything that could be damaged by the blasting media (don't ask me how I know). Also consider that it may be illegal to blast something already coated with lead paint by allowing the stuff to settle on the ground, thereby leaching into the ground water, or by sending up clouds of lead containing dust that will drift down the street to the local nursery school! If in fact you determine that it does have lead paint, take it to the pros and let them deal with it.

Brian
Taxachusetts

[Cliff Holmes]

$75 an hour sounds like an ok professional rate. Your next question is how long it will take for a pro to sandblast a tablesaw.

If you disassemble and mask it yourself, I would think 10-15 minutes. Make sure you protect any mating surfaces like bearing inserts and the top itself.


How many projects down the road will require you to use your own sandblaster ?:cool:

I use my dad's old blast cabinet quite a bit. It's surprisingly handy, but then I tinker and fix a lot. I just finished restoring an old Altas metal lathe and it was invaluable.

[Cliff Holmes]

Oh, and if you do get a blast cabinet, DON'T USE SAND. Silica dust leads to silicosis. Even if you'll be blasting rarely, it's not worth the risk. The stuff goes everywhere and you'll be stirring it up whenever you walk. Get other blasting media, coal slag (black beauty) is cheap and fast. Glass beads give a really nice finish and it's reusable (screen it first).

[Dave Cav]

Thanks everyone for the info. Good stuff here. I will probably get one of the Harbor Freight pressure pot blasters when one goes on sale, then to go the local sandblast place and see if I can get a five gallon pail of recycled garnet abrasive reasonably cheap. I know about the problems using silica sand in a blaster, which is one reason why I use glass beads in my cabinet. The other reason is that I can pretty much blast anything with glass beads by varing the pressure depending on the job at hand and what the material is I'm blasting. I have the saw pretty much all apart except for removing the cast iron plinth, which will come off this weekend.