Hello. Can i get a little bit of advice on setting up this sand blasting system.
I am doing this as cheap as possible, so i designed and built my own cabinet. It cost less than $60.00 so far. I made a trade for the air compressor.

I was wondering what else i need to get this ready for operation. I have an idea of what else i need, but i wanted to get it right the first time without having to take parts back for exchange and what not.

Here is the blast cabinet. Its built for (ME) at 6'2", it is the perfect height for me. Its also built specially for some parts that i will be doing lots of.
What i have thats not in the picture.
-Syphon feed sand blasting nozzle.
-Perf metal. To cut into sections and lay inside for a bed to set parts on.
-Bucket. To collect sand at bottom of funnel.
-4"x 6" LG PVC for "handling ports"
-Hose clamps for securing rubber gloves.

Primarily, i will be using this to put a 1 mil profile on mild steel parts for painting. Also to remove rust and in some cases, think paint, off of other parts.
Booth may also be used for some artsy things like glass and stone etching.

So, here is the cabinet i dreamed up last week. I hope it works. I need to seal up the joints a little better, and insert the pvc tubes. I waited to put holes for hoses in it untill im ready.

I used plywood because, i figured it wont be getting direct blast from the sand, and must loose enough energy to eat away at it after it has hit the parts being blasted. I was told by a friend that lining it with formica might help if this does become an issue.


My blast cabinet is made to be modular. The box simply sets on the framework and can be seperated. I made it this way to be easier to move if i have to move it.


This is the funnel. I will put something like a bucket at the bottom to collect the sand. Maybe i should make a port accessable to a screen to sift the sand, that would be handy. Hmmm. Centered in the bottom of the cabinet, there is a 2"x34"LG slot where the sand will drain out to this funnel. You might get a better glimps of it in the next photo's


This is an end loader. The door is secured by 4 wing screws and nuts embeded in the plywood and sealed from inside. Door is sitting on the ground.


Closer look inside. Note the long rails. I will cut up my perf metal in strips and lay it accross these rails. This is the right size for my parts, and it can always be raised to make more floor surface. I bought a piece of plexi for cheap. I dont know how long plexi will last, but i have a spare, and i can always put glas in there.

It still needs a light, but thats nothing to worry about right now.




Here is the compressor i traded for it. I dont know much about it right now except that it does run. The guy wired it for 110 or 220. I need to change the oil. Its fly wheel is cracked, but with low RPMS, im not sure if i should keep using it. The motor is 3hp. It also has a pressure breaker, which im not sure of the condition.
So, shouldnt this set up do the job of some heavy sand blasting? A few i talked to said this should be adequate. I wanted a few more second opinions. I hope this works... Any other suggestions please?






Pressure breaker in center.



I was gonna put the holes for the hoses just right and below of the ports.
If anyone wants a copy of this, ill post my print.

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

Thanks stephen. Good idea on the screen.
So can this 3hp be swapped out for anything bigger, and at what limitation?

I think the compressor is big enough for the occasional small job- but its not enough for continuous blasting.
I have a big 7 1/2Hp on a 120 gallon tank, and it runs continuously when I sandblast.
Changing the motor wont help- you need a bigger compressor, and a bigger tank, as the problem is not horsepower, its CFM.

A good place to look for ideas to copy, parts to buy, and theory of sizing, is the TIP website.
I bought their gun, pickup tube, gloves and vacuum, and built my own 1/8" plate sandblaster, and it works really well.
You are gonna need at the very least a shop vac- and that will destroy itself pretty quick. Much better, and of course, more money, is a real vac for sand, with a cloth bag and filters, so the sand doesnt all go thru your motor- it does wonders for bearings.
Dust fills your sandblaster quickly- especially if you are using sand- which I think is a crummy blasting medium anyway, but even worse because it breaks down so quickly into hazardous dust.
I use Star Blast, which is Staurolite from Dupont- much better medium, lasts a long time, and isnt too expensive.

http://www.tptools.com/

Thanks Ries~!~

Since you seem to be crafty and resourceful, you may be able to find a SECOND compressor and run them both for your operation as needed. Stagger your pressure switches so they don't both kick on and off at the same time.

Ries - where do you buy your Staurolite? Do you drive to Seattle metro or something?

Just wondering, I'd like to try this for sandblasting tasks, as I have two compressors, but how is this done? If you stagger the pressure switches, won't the switch set at the higher pressure range (say 90-140 psi) always turn on first, so the second switch (let's say, set at 80-130 psi), never gets to switch on?

The only way I can think of to make this work is to have a separate pressure switch, that controls both compressors, bypassing the orginal switches.

Jeff

It looks very nice. You might consider some metal plates inside to protect the wood if there is a spot you tend to hit more frequently.

I have a bead blaster that is modified from a large one I got from HF about ten years ago. I got it on sale because it had some small dents on it and it was the floor model. I threw the gun away because it used ceramic tips that don't last. I replaced it with one from Snap-on that has carbide inner and outer tubes. It's been heavily used for the past ten years and has no measurable wear to date.

Unfortunately I had to pay $80 for the gun and they're probably more now if you can ever find a Snap-on salesman. Tungsten tips are really the way to go on a blaster.

I added 3 shielded lights inside and a tempered glass window that is protected by sheets of clear polycarbonate that I replace when they get cloudy.

I use fine glass beads from a local supplier. They get about $20 for a 25 pound sack. My machine holds two sacks and they last me a long time because I try not to blast anything that's greasy or oily. I do my cleaning first. MSC or Grainger has the gloves.

You will also need some sort of exhaust device to pull the dust away so you can see what you are doing. I use a Cyclone Brand Dust Collector head that I bought about 35 years ago. It's driven by a 2 hp Baldor 220 VAC motor. It sits on top of a 55 gallon barrel with a dust bag on the exhaust for the fines. The barrel has a door that unbolts to clean out the barrel. It has a 4" hose to connect to the blaster and it pulls some serious vacuum. I also use this when I do woodworking for chips.

My compressor has an 80 gallon tank with a two-stage all iron compressor unit. The motor is a Canadian (true) 5 hp that is the size of a small watermelon. IIRC, the machine is rated at 18-20 CFM. It will cycle when I'm working but I seldom do more than five minutes at a time since I'm usually only doing small motocycle parts although the blaster is large enough to take a Cast Harley wheel or a crankcase a side at a time.

I do think you will be needing a larger compressor due to the issue of duty cycle.

Good luck on your project!

Very impressive work!

My compressor tank was rusty like that, I used Hammerite spray paint and it's lasted three years so far without rusting again.

Oh, you probably know this, but remember to drain the water from the compressor tank regularly otherwise it'll not work as good.

No, it isn't like you're thinking. What you're missing is that if say the syatem is charged up, then you start
drawing it down first compressor A will turn on but since that isn't enough, the system will keep drawing
down until compressor B also turns on, at which point hopefully it will keep up or draw down slower.
Compressor A will run continuously in this scheme while B cycles, assuming the total CFM from A+B is
enough to keep up with a blaster which is a questionable assumption.

Ries, I'm also curious where you source your blasting material. Do you mail order it from Tip?

Grant Erwin
Kirkland, Washington

Yep, MetalMagpie has it right.

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.

Thanks for the advice so far. I've been away for a few days and just noticed the feed back. Thanks for the compliments. I was gonna do the same thing with an old refrigerator, but couldnt find one on craigslist. I needed to get on with it anyway.

Is there a spray on rubber coating that might work for keeping the inner surface from being eaten up?

This compressor has two removable nuts on the side. They are about 1" dia threaded holes into the tank. I was told that this was for adding more tanks for more capacity, but can anyone identify what brand this thing is? I cant find any indicators of who made it, or if i could find a tank for it some day.

Slightly OT, but would propane tanks converted to compressor tanks only be good for about 90psi at 12gauge?

I may try the staggered approach like matt says too.

Can someone help me with this wiring? Its an area i dont have much experience with. I dont want to fry something, Me included.
I pulled the panel off of this to find some loose wires. I have another section of this yellow cord that i can connect from the box to the motor, but im not exactly sure which goes where. I see the diagram on the panel, but thats not even quite clear to me. The previous owner wired it for 110. I am trying to wire it for 220.

I see L1 and L2 on the box. I see something like T5 on the bottom.






Heres the box. This is pretty much how this came. I removed the older cable, and put in this new Yellow cable. I had to rebuild the top center terminal. The screw was missing and the plastic was a little bit shattered. The previous owner had the ground just hanging loose. Down below, it was all disconnected, and the cable went out that bottom left hole and was cut a few inches out.

Just to cover the bases here but you do realize that air compressor tanks don't last forever and if a rusted tank fails under pressure it can get ugly? One of my construction magazines had an article where a guy described hearing a "boom" and watched a compressor of similar size fly up and over a two story house. It would be a good idea to have some distance between yourself and that compressor when you are sand blasting.

Steve.

In Seattle, I have bought Star Blast from United Western, on Marginal Way just north of the 1st avenue Bridge.
http://unitedwesternsupply.net/

As Metalmuncher says, the stuff lasts forever, so its been a few years, but I would assume they still sell it.

Thanks guys, I will definately look into the starblast product. I just have to get this old betty working first. As for it blowing up.,, Yeah, i am a bit gun shy of it. I will try to isolate it somehow.

I lined my wooden blast cabinet with a doubled-up layer of heavy poly sheeting stapled in place. It seems to work fine. I also put a layer of clingwrap on the inside of the glass window. Even that little bit seems to help protect the glass.

I tried some walnut shell in a pressure pot a few days ago. The tips that came with that pot are all too small and clog immediately so I just used the ball-valve on the end of the hose without them. That means that it dumps out the shell (and the pressure) very quickly. The inside of the cabinet disappears into a thick brown fog of shell dust so I had to try and feel for the pressure of the blast stream while I held the part in my hand.

It worked, but it isn't exactly optimal. Plus, my "Chargeforce" compressor isn't a real 5hp unit.

I was hoping the shell would give me a "clean and original surface" on motorcycle engine castings, but it still looks "blasted", though not as much as with the nickel slag I used for a long time.

I have some very fine garnet that I have yet to try. I suspect that will also be more abrasive than I want.

cheers,
Michael

Check out www.tptools.com They have a lot of blasting equipment. I agree about the compressor size. You may be okay for light stuff but not for continues blasting.

The dryer you can get the air, the better. Some kind of a water separator will make a big difference. If you can add to the capacity of the system, that in itself will help.

I have a real five horse compressor and it runs constantly when I am blasting. My projects can tale some time removing rust. My blast stream is bigger than a pencil eraser and I can move pretty quick. I use what TP Tools defines as a medium tip. By their definition, you would need a small tip. For small parts, you should be fine.

You can make a loop with two inch copper pipe that works well. A gentleman from Iwata gave the idea. You go up ten feet and loop back down ten feet. You T off the down leg into you air system. The loop has a drain on the bottom of the downward leg. The moisture on the up leg drains back into the compressor. I bougth six SS fire extinguishers for two buck each at a garage sale. I am making a similar system from them because copper is so expensive and I had the SS tanks. I have a thirty five year old SS Budweiser keg I thought about using but I have been saving it for something special. Maybe they can fill it back up and mix it with my ashes and serve the beer at my wake.

Luck,

Grits