Sandblasting

Hi all, I'm looking to get doing a bit of sandblasting. I've got my sand, air compressor, sand blasting gun, mask etc. But the piece I am wondering about is where should I blast into. I was thinking of a box or something like that. Maybe some on this forum could share their ideas.

A work station setup. You can build a wooden box for the blasting in, seal up all corners. You'll need a window but the glass needs to be high tempered glass so the sand hitting the glass doesn't frost the glass. At work we have 2, one with plastic media and one with black sand. For the glass in both of them, nobody knows if it's high tempered glass or just regular glass so we use a clear plastic to cover it. When the clear plastic frosts up from the media hitting it, we just pull the glass and lay another piece of plastic over it and put it back together. Lasts a couple days between changing and the plastic is from our shrink wrap table. Food plastic wrap won't work because it would be too thin, need a thicker plastic you can see through. A seal around the door. And a vent on top of the box with a filter of some sort, very important, to let the air out from the sand blasting, don't want a pressure build up for a blowout. Bottom of the box can be your hopper (where you put the sand), with a grate for a table so when you are blasting the sand will fall through the grate to the bottom and should be coned shaped or triangle shaped with the pickup for the blaster at the lowest point. A long pair of chemical gloves to go through the front to hold the part.

If you are looking to sand blast out in the open. Cover up real good, especially your face and eyes. What ever you are blasting, you got to look at and the sand will bounce off the part and hit you in the face. A full plastic face shield would work best and even with the shield you still need a good pair of goggles that are enclosed, trust me on that one. As for the sand, shouldn't shoot too far, you can use a 10 foot by 10 foot tarp to have the sand fall on when blasting with a 2 sided wall to have in front of what ever you are blasting. When the sand is used up, just sweep it up to reuse it.

Maybe you'll have better luck than I do sand blasting. My machine plugs up every five seconds. I just work out in the driveway, but like prancstaman said, cover up good if you don't have a blast cabinet. Flying pieces sting pretty good and there's a lot of junk blowing around. When it works it's really nice for tough to reach corners ect.

Almost forgot, thanks Mr Modified.

A quick way to unclog the gun and sand line is to take your hand, ofcourse with a glove on of some sorts, and cover the tip of the gun to block it. Then hit the trigger for the air for a second or two, then let go of trigger. This forces the air through the pickup line and blows out the clog. Yah, happens a lot at work and works every time on the siphon guns, probably won't work on those tank setups where the air pressurizes the hopper to push out the sand.

I had a small cabinet from TSC, but then switched to an outdoor setup. Next year im going to get an outdoor pressure blaster and a hooded mask, cause sand will get absolutely everywhere if you expose any skin.

Yeah I've got a fully enclosed shot blasting mask. I might just blast out in a field or something. I think the trick is to get really dry sand. I use kiln dried sand.

I tried to sandblast some rims there but the sand keeps blocking up the pick up pipe. The sand is kiln dried and doesn't feel 'wet'. Any ideas?

Ive been contemplating cutting up and using one of them big oil fuel tanks 500 gallon or something for a blasting cabinet...

Is your air wet? The bigger the tank the better, plus a water separator at the tank and at the gun. Thats what my biggest issue was, my 15gal comp pulls in a ton of water.

I'm not sure. My tank is fairly big, around 5gal I think.

A 5 gallon tank? What kind of compressor with motor do you have? If it's that small then your compressor is just not putting out enough of air. Need to watch your air pressure while blasting to keep a certain amount. You need atleast 90 psi constant air pressure to do anything with. To keep that much air pressure going you need about a 30 gallon tank with a pretty big compressor running and still would have to take a break to let the compressor keep up the air pressure.

My setup is home made with a 2 cylinder compressor with a 6 hp gas motor running wide open, going to a 10 gallon tank and I still have problems keeping 90 psi up.

If you got a 5 gallon tank with a matching compressor then you might have about 5 seconds of blasting before air pressure is useless. You would have to wait till air pressure builds back up to full to restart blasting for another 5 seconds.

Yea, sandblasting uses a ton of air. 5 gal is nowhere close to being enough. My 15 runs low pretty fast, and like prancstaman said a 30 gallon with a twin piston is about ideal for hobby blasting. A 60 twin would be an ideal size tank, triple better, and anything beyond that is icing. I bought a 60 gallon tank in spring but havent bought a pump or motor/ engine for it yet.

I'm not sure exactly how many gallons it is. It could be 10 gallons. I had it up to 110 psi. I don't really think that it is a pressure issue, it's moisture. There's probably a lot of water in that tank.

10 gallon tank with a matching compressor still sounds pretty small. Dimensions for a 15 gallon tank is roughly 15 inches round and about 3 feet long. To clear the moisture out, you need to get it out of the tank, need a drain hole on the bottom, if moisture stays in the tank for long periods of time it will rust the tank on the inside and create an unsafe condition of the tank blowing a hole on the bottom. But that would take years though. Having moisture in the tank doesn't mean it will blow out the air line. Water is heavy and usually stays in the tank till there is alot of it to blow out the air line since the air line hooks to the top of the tank. You would see the water coming out for it to be a problem for anything.

Can you post a pic of your setup? would help alot.

10 gallons is still really small for blasting. Sandblasting uses a ton of air. In auto, we had a big 80? gallon tank in the room opposite the room opposite us, and after 10 minutes you could feel it kick in. After about an hour you had to stop because of the moisture in the lines and the drop in pressure

There doesnt need to be a ton of water in the tank for there to be water in the lines. If youre in a humid environment it will gather water like mad, and water particles will get sucked into the lines and gather there. It doesnt all lay in the tank. I drain my tank monthly and theres always water in the lines. You can get an air/ water separator for at the tank and probably a silica filter for at the gun.

Ah right. I'll measure and take a picture of the compressor tomorrow. It usually sits at the back of the garage, and it has a really long pipe so plenty of water could gather there.

Sorry I never got a photograph today. I'll try tomorrow.

So finally got a photo of the compressor and tank.

Thats about the size of mine. Works ok for spot blasting but doesnt have the cfm to do it continuously.

So mine is about 15 gallon, right? I still think it's got moisture in the system somewhere causing it to block up with sand.

That compressor and tank look pretty small for sand blasting. But I have mine plug up even without moisture issues. Mine is EXTREMELY touchy. Not sure how yours is set up, but don't feel too bad if you can't get it going too good. On mine there's an air valve and a valve to adjust the flow of sand. What happens is you get the air going then slowly open the sand...little more...nothing. Then you carefully open it a little more....still no blasting. Then a little more and you get some sand, work about 10 seconds and it will plug up. But if you don't open it enough it won't flow into the line and you have to shake it to get it to work. Smaller nozzle or tip will use less air but also plug up easier. Depends on how fine your sand is too.

What sand are you using?

I think it's Kiln dried builders sand or something like that. I'll check tomorrow.

Yah, that's a small one. Good for about a minute or less. Wouldn't try to do big surface areas with that compressor because you would fry it. Would be good for only small spots maybe about 3 inches or less, letting it cool before you do more. Probably would have to stop a couple of times to let compressor recharge with air just to do that.

Thanks. Is there anyway for me to drain water from the tank?