Media Blasting Question.

[Travis Centers]

Hey guys, my pressure pot is getting stopped up and blasting is a two man job at the moment.

I keep a desiccant system on the line, but its Tennessee and humid every day. I dumped a quart of Silica Gel in the media for about a week, separated them from the media, and was still having problems with the media feeding correctly. Someone has to stay on the valves to keep the media flowing correctly.

Can anyone recommend a decent media blaster for Silicone Carbide?

Other then not flowing correctly, the media eats through valves and hoses like no other. I am guessing that this is just the game you play when using this media.

When I blast it is usually a few hours at a time.

It scares me to spend a ton of money on a better system, why? Because Silicone Carbide is the devil when it comes to eating through stuff.

I learned early on that a deadman valve was not a good idea. It eats through them in a few uses.

Can anyone share their setups? I use it to make a living, but I don't know that my products sell for enough to keep an expensive system running.

It reminds me of buying an expensive car, which I have only done once when I was 18 years old.

Thanks guys,
Travis

[Kev Williams]

This reminds me of the old doctor joke--
"Doc, it hurts when I move my arm like this!"
"Then don't move your arm like that!"

Seems your biggest problem is silcone carbide-- Obviously it's your preferred media, but is it worth the trouble to use and the expensive repairs it's generating?

A media that takes 4x as long to work but doesnt' destroy the equipment while doing it may be more time and cost effective in the long run...

[Braden Todd]

I would suggest looking into the Rayzist or Photobrasive units. They're expensive, but down time and poor production times are worse in my opinion.

Good luck!

[Gary Hair]

What kind do you have now? I'm using a cheapie Harbor Freight 110lb pot with both aluminum oxide and silicon carbide - both feed just fine. I did modify the feed at the bottom by extending it up with a piece of copper pipe with holes drilled in it. Instead of one single hole on the bottom, I now have 20 that extend up about 4" into the pot. It's rare that I get a feed problem and it's usually caused by my lack of sifting the media when I reuse it.

You also might have gunk stuck in the feed tube and/or the mixing chamber, clean them both really well and see if that changes anything. I can't imagine your humidity is much worse than mine, we are usually around 80% and sometimes into the 90%.

I bought a fairly expensive water/oil separator, this thing generates about 2 quarts an hour vs maybe 2 cups an hour with the typical air/oil separator.

[Wayne Lomman]

Travis, just saw this thread. Gary's right to get a good separator. Constant clogging is usually moisture from the air supply. If you are in a humid area it is even more important.

Using silicon carbide is always going to cause grief. Blast nozzles and miser valve liners are usually made from it so you have no hardness differential. Use a different media. What material are you blasting? Cheers

[Gary Hair]

Here is the filter I have,http://www.filters.com/Tsunami-Automatic-Water-Separators. Get one appropriate for the CFM your compressor puts out. Mine is a 100cfm diesel powered rotary screw so I needed something pretty beefy. Make sure you put it at the end of the line farthest from your compressor. The air has to cool enough to release the water or it won't do any good. The filters that are mounted to the compressor do very little good and you would be better served to move them within a few feet of your pressure pot.

edit:
Here is my actual filter:
http://www.filters.com/21999-0082-Tsunami-Compressed-Air-Filter-System-Water-Separator-w-Float-Drain-120-Series-1-InOut-120-SCFM