Great initiative, should work fine.

A (true) 5HP compressor has been described as the bare minimum entry level for sandblasting, and a good observation someone made that is also true, is "think about taking a pencil eraser and working it all over the part to remove paint/rust. That is about how large an area the effective stream from a 5HP comprossor is"

your 3HP should be good for light paint removal & tedious rust removal on small parts. It should work excellent for sand etching glass.

One thing that will make your glass (plexi) last longer is to put a layer of metal windowscreen over it on the inside. Even better if it stands off the glass about 1/8".

search sand blasting, sandblasting, blast cabinet, etc. There's a lot of previous discussion.

smt