The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop finding my much needed tool

hello,im looking for a link to a webpage whom sells sandblasters,and more leaning towards a cheap one thanks

you can try www.harborfreight.com

I had one of those cheap ones from H F I had realy good luck with it . Be sure to pick up a few extra tips

Well, I have one of those pressure blasters from HF, and I have NOT had good luck with it. Clogs up really easy, uses lots of sand when it does work. Gave up on it and bought a siphon blaster from Sears. Much better. No clogging, and sand lasts much longer. Just not as effective as a pressure blaster (takes a little longer to do the same job), but with the HF blaster always clogging and having to take time to declog, I think it is faster to use the siphon blaster.
I also bought one of those cabinet blasters from HF when they were on sale, and have had good luck with it. The gun has already been worn out, tho, so I am using the gun that came with the Sears blaster in the cabinet (also a siphon set-up), and works great! The only problem I had on the HF cabinet blaster is the gun's tips wore out and it seems HF discontinued selling replacement tips. Which makes the gun worthless.

Brian, I found the same thing to be true. I was thrilled ot get my pressure blaster home from Harbor Frieght, only to find that it didn't work as good as my old siphon blaster. Even my little hand held "Speed blaster" works better.

By the way, I found that the pressure blaster used WAY more sand to get the job done.

Another tip, once you get the blaster, try several different size tips to get the right combination. Once you have plenty of air and get the right size, it works way better than other sizes from my experience.

Another place to try is Nothern Tool .

what is the best tip to tear into the cab rust and old paint? :confused:

To make the Harbor Freight pressure blaster work I did this.
1) Pre-screen all your sand thru an old window screen & 5 galllon bucket. You will catch a LOT of large pieces that would have clogged the tip.
2) Change all steel valves to brass valves.
3) Clean out the little "chips" of assembly metal carelessly left when the Chinese workers cut the pipe threads. I got about 10 metal chips out.
4)Most important is a small rubber gasket just behind the white porceline tip in the gun. Remove it and replace it with rubber washer, or an "O" ring, or just wallow it out on the inside to a larger inside diameter hole. This little bogus thing was trapping sand and clogging cause it squishes too tight and the inside hole gets too tiny.

I buy bulk "fine" sand from a quarry for 3 dollars a 100 pound bag, and after I screen it for stray large particles, it has worked perfect.

My HF pressure blaster has done everything from rusty wheels, to valve covers, exhaust manifolds, and fenders, etc FANTASTIC. But it needed the aforementioned re-working!

I first thought my problem was too much humidity, but I sandblasted on a horribly humid day and got very little clogs from the water.

I used 65-85lbs pressure from my 5hp 20 gallon compressor and everything worked super.

Professional sandblasters told me DO NOT attempt to blast your hood or any other relatively thin expanse of sheet metal that needs a super smooth paint job (they hate trunk decks too) until you are an Expert plus. Most rounded, real thick AD truck parts are OK; BUT experiment first on big thick stuff like wheels, or parts that wont show a "wave" that a poor sandblast job might put into really thin metal.

Good luck, hope this helps
john
1952 COE 2 ton
1947 COE semi

yes extremly helpful jhonny,thanks for the aditional help guys

I have vowed never to shop at Harbor Freight again. Tried to order an oversized air cap and needle for their HVLP spray gun. Received a router depth gauge instead. To return it, you have to call them, they have to send you a return label, then you have to wait for the right item. Still haven't got it. Their cheap prices reflect their lousy customer service, I'm afraid.

While im no expert i will add my 2 cents worth.I used a cheap siphion model and to some degree was able to controll the intensity by adjusting the air presure.Iused both silica sand and and a black comercial blast material.Ihad no problem with the silica sand clogging but the comercial stuff seemed to work a lot better.it had a more jaged edge and hurt more in the eyes than the sand l.o.l Wich brings me to my next point.How ever much you spend on the gun,dont scrimp on the safty gear.

I built my own blaster using a 100lb propane tank a few valves, and then bought the sandblast hose & nozzle from Princess auto supply for around $40 replacement tips come in sizes from 1/8 to 5/8 in and are about $6 each. Found it works great for heavy guage metal ,(frames wheels etc.) BUT it does use a lot of air (5/8 nozzle about 110 cfm) for blasting i'am using a diesel road construction compressor with 200cfm, some rental places rent them as a set and will delever.