Sandblasting thoughts & recommendations

[Cary Falk]

I bought one of theses for <$20. I have a 60 gallon compressor and it runs continuously. I don't use it much because it makes a mess. I have switched over to soda for the medium. I do it outside in the driveway. What I can't sweep up, I just wash off. Don't do it on you grass because it will kill it

https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Haus...ds=sandblaster

[Alex Tzoulis]

What about these nozzles ?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32984654896.html
I have lathe & mill is there any good plan to build myself a gun that accepts those boron carbide nozzles ?

[Alex Zeller]

Years ago I worked for a glass company. Every so often we would make a sign out of a mirror by masking the back and sand blasting the exposed part. It was a neat effect. The blasted area looked white and if you put a light source behind it it would light up. We never did our own blasting though. It was much cheaper to just pay someone (we had a welding shop who could do it) to do it for us. If you really want to S blast it I would make a few calls.

[John K Jordan]

Years ago I worked for a glass company. Every so often we would make a sign out of a mirror by masking the back and sand blasting the exposed part. It was a neat effect. The blasted area looked white and if you put a light source behind it it would light up. We never did our own blasting though. It was much cheaper to just pay someone (we had a welding shop who could do it) to do it for us. If you really want to S blast it I would make a few calls.

That sounds like fun. I have a huge antique mirror I need to get rid of - maybe someone would like to blast some of the sliver off the back!

Many years ago I would etch glass by blasting with silicon carbide grit. Using an idea in (I think) a Popular Mechanics magazine in the '80s I made masks by using an xacto knife to cut through paper attached to the glass with double sided tape. I made a hopper with a nozzle that forced grit upwards through a hole cut in a foam rubber sheet where it abraded the glass not covered by the mask. The grit just bounced off the mask. (That nozzle was brass but didn't wear since it was just supplying a stream of air.) It was very effective, especially at putting designs or monograms on round glassware for gifts.

hopper_photos_2.jpg hopper.jpg

[Alex Zeller]

We used a single sided sticky foam to mask the parts of the mirror off. There's a vinyl sticker place that has a printer (used for cutting the vinyl) that could cut the foam. The image had to be reversed since it was on the back side. That popular mechanic's idea looks interesting but I think it wouldn't work well for larger items. Often the mirrors we were doing were large, like 5'x10', and went into malls. the person doing the blasting had to carefully do each letter to make sure they miss any of the edges. With malls kind of fading away I'm not sure if there's still a demand for it.

[John K Jordan]

... That popular mechanic's idea looks interesting but I think it wouldn't work well for larger items. Often the mirrors we were doing were large, like 5'x10', and went into malls. the person doing the blasting had to carefully do each letter to make sure they miss any of the edges.

Yes, I can't imagine working on a large piece of anything with this method. Even with drinking glasses and glass canisters I had to work carefully to not miss anything.

The hopper method also worked for sandblasting a few other things. I threaded a small plywood square to hold spark plugs for cleaning. It wouldn't be practical for anything which didn't seal the hole in the foam completely.

For occasional sandblasting of small parts I bought a kit from Northern Tool with tank and gun. It's fine for occasional use but without a containment cabinet it wastes a lot of grit and can make a big mess.

[Bill Dufour]

The hopper idea is how the commercial spark plug cleaners work. You have to be careful and get all the grit out between the ceramic and the steel body. You do not want to add sand into a cylinder.
Bil lD