I’d like very much to see the gun that you used to do a complete tractor with your pressure pot and seven bags of sand. My experience has been that controlling the air shut off at the guns themselves are the weak link in these hobby systems. I’ve tried several different styles and they have all failed after having a few bags of media run through them. I’ve been using Black Diamond blasting media. All of the trigger shutoff methods have worn completely thru on all of them after a couple of hours use. In professional systems the air is triggered independent of the media so your not trying to plug up a stream of air mixed with blasting media when you release a trigger or foot switch.
A typical backyard blasting exercise goes something like this; After you spend your $200 to $300 on a pressure blaster and safety equipment, (cost me around $200 just for a cheap halfway functional hood with an air line run into it) this is what you will probably experience.
A 2lb blaster will empty and need refilling in about 2-3 minutes at the most, about all its good for is blasting a “small” spot, a very small spot. A 100lb pressure blaster may last for 20-30 minutes before it needs to be refilled, if your taking a break every couple of minutes while you re-position everything. Refilling the pot, taking off and putting on the safety equipment, i.e., gloves, hood, air lines, cleaning the steam off the lens every five minutes even with fresh air feed into the hood, which means, taking off and putting on the safety equipment again, unclogging the hose and bottom regulator valves a few times before the pot empties out, which means, taking off and putting on the safety equipment once again, sweeping up the media and filtering it if you chose to use it more than once is just some of the fun your going to have. And after a couple of hours you may have an Advance Design rear fender blasted clean inside and out and ready for sanding, conditioner and primer!
Oh yes, and as mentioned earlier, you better have a good compressor with at least 20-25 cfm and a darn good drier if your serious about blasting a whole truck. Your $400 Sears or Big Box air compressor and with its $12 filter/regulator just won’t cut it and will most likely be four hundred dollars with of scrap metal by the time your done with a whole body and frame.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
