Blaster questions...

[Brandy]

Hello all, I have been setting up a DIY blasting cabinet and am about done. I got to testing it yesterday and ran into some issues. The black sand goes through the hose fine and gets stopped dead at the nozzle by a round rubber disk with a hole in the center that sits right behind the ceramic tip. ????? WTH? If I take it out the sand exits fine, but all at once. I'm using a pressure pot w/ 125 psi max. My compressor is a 60 gallon 5hp, 175 psi. I have dryer with the blue beads in it and another further down the line and the pot is 25 feet from the compressor. I do not have a trigger gun though, just the gate valve unit. So, what the heck is the black rubber thing blocking the nozzle supposed to be doing? I don't see that lasting long in there anyway? Help please. Thanks, Ghost.

 

[PRND21]

How coarse is the black sand. Can you increase the size of the opening in the plastic disc? I can use the black sand in my pot blaster, but it doesn't work very well in my TIP blast cabinet. My pot has a valve at the bottom of the tank to meter the amount of sand that goes through the line. It's somewhat sensetive to the abrasive flow/ air pressure settings. If I have too much abrasive trying to go through, mine plugs easily.

 

[Brandy]

Right, I am also trying to get more air and less abrasive at the nozzle. The sand is really fine grade stuff. My buddy stopped by today and he said to open the gate valve lever at the output nozzle only a small bit in order to control the flow so i'll try that next. The pot has a 125 psi max sticker. Seems like sand flying at that pressure should get the rust and paint off...right? I also recalled that I got three other ceramic nozzles with the pot when I bought it. I'll be checking those to see if they are smaller and better matched to the medium i'm using. The black disc is in the pics below.

 

[747mopar]

Can we get some pics of the whole setup? I've got a syphon feed cabinet that will not pass the black beauty media either, I inspected it running it threw a screen and it looks to be extruded glass and not well filtered (found lots of 1/4" long media)? If using a pressure pot where it's being force fed you want to control the media flow (wide open usually doesn't blast well) and should only need the selected size ceramic nozzle with no restrictions. My outdoor blaster is pressurized with a ball valve to throttle the media, I shut it completely off then slowly open it to where it blast best.

 

[Brandy]

This has a ball valve at the end too...

 

[Brandy]

I caulked it all up today and now wonder where to put the air inlet so the shop vac can suck out the dust. Should I cover the inlet with screen or what?

 

[Brandy]

heres the rest of the garage...

 

[Brandy]

I think I might hang the hose along the roof so it hangs down in front of the window, like a commercial dish washing hose, on a spring.

 

[YY1]

How you gonna get the sand out of the cabinet?

Couple of tips-

I can't find "tear-off" shields to protect my glass in the window, so I'm using wide clear packing tape.
Works great although a little intensive to remove. Lats a long time.

I've got a 5 gal bucket with a 2" PVC inlet down pipe from the cabinet, and a 2" up pipe to the shop vac.
The up pipe also makes a 90* bend and is up against the side wall of the bucket.
This helps keep exhausted media in the bottom of the bucket, rather than the vac.

I could also add about an inch of water in the bottom to really trap debris.

For blasting, pressure is not the key, volume or CFM is.

 

[Brandy]

Thanks for the tips. Pictures please of what you described?

 

[super-bee_ski]

heres the rest of the garage...

View attachment 362623 View attachment 362624 View attachment 362625 View attachment 362626 View attachment 362627 View attachment 362628

Nice garage
Nice set-up

 

[Donny]

Gotta admire the determination to make a DIY blasting system. Sadly, you don't have enough air to do what you are asking your sand and system to do. 125psi is nothing, you have to move heavy sand thru piping that is likely too small for it to tumble and travel down to your nozzle, but, you will need more volume of air, which means your little hoses are too little to carry the media. The wood walls will quickly wear out, you will overcome your vacuum dust collector as you will soon need the ability to filter the sand from the dust. Every system is related and must work well with one another.

I have a 50hp, 180cfm, 10-110psi air compressor, with a dust collector that is 15 feet tall and a pressure vessel you could crawl into, 2 inch pipe/hose carries my media thru 85 feet of various hose/pipe to my work area. This is all money, lots of money, each foot of 2 inch rubber hose is about $11.00 dollars, nozzle is $150.00, on a typical car like a Charger, I will blow over it about 6000 lbs of media, all being re-used many times after running it thru a cyclone which pulls the dust out and sends it to the bag house dust collector. Most of you know this, but I only say it again to clarify that this DIY activity is NOT worth the effort and hassle just to blast the small stuff off your cars. Like send your Blaster your Fender, he'll charge you 80-125 bucks per Fender, which is cheap compared to this set up you have shown us in this thread. However, I admire the determination! Ditch the rubber black gasket, and try to get a solid seal nozzle to hose connection vs a rubber gasket in there.

 

[Brandy]

please explain the solid seal connection you speak of. Is this something other than the valve and nozzle I have now? This is just to clean up the front suspension parts.

 

[Donny]

Basically, you're eliminating that rubber gasket, might take some rigging to make this happen like eliminate the space where the gasket goes which may mean machining the nozzle holder allowing the hose to choke up in it further, then drill small holes in side and screw in small screws to hold the blast hose in the heavily modified handle, goal is allow blast hose to directly contact nozzle, or...engineer a pipe to do such a move. I've had to do this a few times myself, seems like blasters spend as much time tinkering as they do blasting.