What's Wrong With My Sand Blaster?

[DerbyDad03]

I see these homemade sand blasters all over youtube and they seem to work just fine - on youtube.

Here the one I made tonight:

Here's the notch:

Here's the result of an entire 20 oz bottle of Fine (24 grit) grade walnut shell media from Harbor Freight. You see the bottom left corner? That's all I got done. I was able to remove 2 layers of the paint but the bottom layer doesn't show any sign of coming off. As I said, I emptied an entire 20 oz bottle of blasting media on that small section.

Stripping the flat surfaces with stripper is easy enough, but I was hoping to use the blaster to strip in between the fins. My attempts at that on another vent failed just as miserably.

One video I saw said 50 PSI was sufficient. I had to set mine at 80 PSI to get the blaster to do anything. The paint just laughed at 50 PSI.

Am I expecting too much from this rig?

[Electric Comet]

yes

[Leon]

IIRC sand blast stations recycle the media over and over again.

[Sonny]

I would try increasing the air pressure to the max your gun is recommended for.

On this video -

- I wasn't to o impressed with the speed of the paint removal (one coat of already maybe loosen paint?). I would think any surface, with a primer, would be even s lower to blast. I might suspect the primer coat on your vents have been b aked on, at the factory, making that coating harder to remove, using the wa lnut grit, if you're wanting to remove the primer, also.

Test with a bit of fine sand. With that delicate of small gun set-up and pressure regulation, controlling the more aggressive sand might be easy eno ugh, hence not damage your vents' metal.

Sonny

[DerbyDad03]

Sure, but this is not a commercial blaster. If I built a booth of some kind, I'm sure I could recycle it. Maybe I'll try it in the shower next time so I can sweep up the media. Fully clothed of course. That stuff stings. ;-)

I wore long sleeves, a hat and ski goggles with a towel hanging below to shield my face. I still got grit on me. It was worth a try, but I think I'll go back to liquid strippers. Just as much work but the mess is more contained.

[Unquestionably Confused]

Couldn't you easily recycle the media using a plastic tarp from Harbor Fright? Half the time they are giving them away in a size suitable for this purpose. So long as the object of the blasting was not right on it, should be fine and you should be able to recover most of it. I would just set it up like an "L" giving it a floor and back and have at it.

[DerbyDad03]

Sure, there's lots of ways to collect the media for reuse, but if the blaster doesn't do what I want it to do, the remaining media will stay neatly packed in the box that it came in. No need to recover unused media. ;-)

I'm stripping the vent with liquid stripper as we speak. I may try to blast whatever doesn't come off (between the fins) at the highest pressure I can but that'll be the last try for this project. Getting the vents painted before the weekend is the priority since company is coming.

[DerbyDad03]

too impressed with the speed of the paint removal (one coat of already mayb e loosen paint?). I would think any surface, with a primer, would be even slower to blast. I might suspect the primer coat on your vents have been baked on, at the factory, making that coating harder to remove, using the walnut grit, if you're wanting to remove the primer, also.

d pressure regulation, controlling the more aggressive sand might be easy e nough, hence not damage your vents' metal.

Yeah, I watched that video last night. He was the one that said 50 PSI was enough. No way.

I up-ed it to 90 PSI earlier this evening. That's max for the cheap HF gun. It worked a little better, but the problem is that my 150 PSI 6 gallon compressor ends up way below 90 PSI before the 20 oz bottle is half empty.

In any case, I got the job done. What I ended up doing was stripping all of flat surfaces with liquid stripper. I then used the stripper and a toothbru sh/ steel wool to get as much paint out from between the fins as possible. It w as impossible to get it all, so next I combined the stripper and the sandblast er.

I slathered stripper between the fins, let it work for a few minutes and th en blasted it and the loose paint away. I'd say I got more than 99% of the pai nt off which is enough. I've already primed the vents and hope to get the firs t coat of paint on tonight.

[Leon]

But did the blaster not clean the corner, and you ran out of media before getting done?

[DerbyDad03]

I never "ran out of media" because I bought a 25 lb box. What I was saying is that I filled the 20 oz soda bottle that the homemade blaster uses and emptied *that* with the poor results showed here:

Had I tried to strip the entire vent with the blaster, I may indeed have used all 25 lbs. That's why I choose to strip as much as I could with the stripper and then blast the loosened paint between the fins. That worked pretty well, especially for getting the 4 layers of globby paint where each slit meets the frame.

In any case, they are painted now, drying and will be installed before the company shows up.

As far as the homemade blaster goes, I'll toss it in the box with the rest of the media and may try it on something else should the need arise. However, I'll probably buy a full face shield so I don't have to do this again:

Those walnut shells hurt!

[Puckdropper]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

*snip*

You look just like Wilson Wilson from Home Improvement!

Full face sheilds are too cheap to not have a good one. $35 makes a lot of issues go away, and you get a comfortable sheild to boot. However, I'm not sure how well they'll work with walnut shells.

Puckdropper

[Leon]

Understood but perhaps you needed the equivalent of 2 hundred oz to properly strip the register.

Good! ;~)

Darth? Is that you? LOL