http://local.yahoo.com/info-22157702...ompany-seattle lists Starblast among the materials they handle. They handle Clemco blasters as well, so they're definitely into serious blast equipment.

Honestly, if I was peddling blasting supplies to hobbyists like TIP and some others do, there's no way I'd ever sell an ounce of Starblast. The damn stuff lasts too long, and would kill your repeat sales. Sell 'em them glass beads instead. They'll turn to pure dust in a few passes thru the blaster and keep the customers coming back for more.

We loaned our big sandblaster to a general contractor we did a lot of work with about 15 yrs ago for blasting the structural steel in a building that had previously been a Coke bottling plant. Sugar is hell on structural steel. They bought 40,000# of Starblast and returned about 10,000# back to us when they were finished with the blasting job. My bead blaster probably averages somewhere around 3-4 hours use per week, and I'm using up the Starblast at the rate of one 100# bag per year. Lifetime supply would be an understatement

You can keep on running the same material round 'n round thru a blast cabinet and it'll cut just as well when its 6 months old as it will when its new. The GC who used our blaster figured they'd use about 100 tons of media for the job, based on estimates from a blasting sand supplier. The rep who handled the Starblast told them to try recycling it, so they put down poly and kept a guy busy sweeping and shoveling, and ultimately used only about 15% of what they'd estimated. At that time, Starblast cost about $3 per 100# bag versus about $1.50 per hundred for blasting sand, based on 40,000# purchases of both. Their total abrasive cost for the job was about 1/3 as compared to sand, and when they were done they had 15 tons of used abrasive to get rid of instead of 100 tons.

Unlike Black Beauty and some of the other slag products, Starblast isn't super agressive. On machined or fabricated parts it'll give a finish that's just about perfect for paint or powder adhesion.