Media blasters - anyone doing this at home? What blaster?

[BarrsRestoration]

This what we use for the bigger projects. I've had it about a year and a half and have absolutely no complaints about it.

http://www.texasblaster.com/

Check the site, lots of information that covers questions most people have about air pressure and volume.

 

[snakeyes]

[video]http://badboyblasters.com/[/video]

 

[FLY 9999]

For small parts, media blasting in a cabinet is a good solution. A draw back for large projects, such as a car, is that fine fine dust gets over the whole car/frame and you never really get rid of it. You bury it with primer. I only media blast body/frame parts that are very rusty. My experience has been that if the factory finish has not come off after 50+ years, there is no need to remove it. I am experimenting with soda blasting and prefer it for those big jobs. It does not get rid of rust(only the surface stuff). I like the ability of rinsing off the residue. All of blasting is based on media and cfm. At one time I used to take a body/frame and dip it into a tank of paint stripper and power wash the paint,grease,etc. It was interesting to see how that lacquer primer or DTM that the factories used was not harmed by the stripper. If it stuck that well it didn't need to come off.

 

[Donny]

Fly9999, you're not really relaying good information in your above post. People remove the old paint because it's old, and, the sort of restorations I see done, and help get done need to old paint off to properly build the car. Dust on the frame is a drawback to media blasting, really? I really don't think you know the full deal in this profession.

 

[GaryS]

When I restored my '73 D100, I removed and had a pro media blast the sheet metal doors, fenders, hood, tailgate and misc smaller pieces. The media that got stuck inside the hood bracing and tailgate took many hours of my labor to remove, so that part was a pain. Price was around $500...not cheap, but they did a good job without damaging anything.

For my next project, a '56 Plymouth, after scraping and wire brushing dried grease, I blasted the frame with Black Diamond and a moderate sized compressor. It took 10 bags and less than a day, but it worked quite well, so less than $100 to strip the frame and about two day's of my labor...hot, dusty, unpleasant labor, but cheap.

The Plymouth's sheet metal was too rusty to try doing myself, so after disassembling, it went to a dip-strip where they used tanks of citrus based, environmentally friendly stripping solution. It took nearly a month, but I can't say enough for the quality of the work. The only place I found where they couldn't get at was inside the rocker panels in the body mount areas. There was some dirt and other trash that had to be removed when I replaced the rockers, but not a big deal. The downside? It cost over $4,000, but for a badly rusted car I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I've learned enough to know that I will not attempt to sandblast large areas of sheet metal myself. I'll leave that to the pros with the right equipment, the knowledge, and the skill.

 

[crahill39]

I am thinking of purchasing a blaster myself because the only place that used to blast cars went out of business. I live out in the country and disposal is not much of a concern. However, I only want to do certain sections of the car, no panels, just structural pieces as I work different sections of the car. With all the talk about sand as a media to stay away from, what would you recommend for removing rust from the structural components?

Craig

 

[northerndave]

This what we use for the bigger projects. I've had it about a year and a half and have absolutely no complaints about it.

http://www.texasblaster.com/

Check the site, lots of information that covers questions most people have about air pressure and volume.

I have a texas blaster rig as well and we really like it. As stated above, size your nozzle according to your CFM.

I'm only running 1/8" nozzle but it's a good carbide nozzle. We for the most part use a media that's crushed and sized glass I believe. The exact name escapes me at the moment.

We arent going to take any work away from guys like Donny with our little 1/8" nozzle. But we get our stuff done ok.

I really do like that Texas blaster rig, pretty sure they have a customer feedback quote from me on their website. lol


If I or my son blasts, we wear a full faced 3M mask with tear offs and a tyvek suit, If it's a crawl inside, awful nasty job with lots of blowback we will wear the half mask and the blast hood with a bump hat.