The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk sand blasting

What type of sand blasting media should I use to clean up brake drums, brake back plates, etc....
And can you tell me where you purchase these. Thanks.

#4 blasting sand will do just fine on those parts. Many of the older independent hardware places either carry the sand or can get it for you.

evac34,

I am guessing you are using either a siphon blaster or a small pressure pot...the "in the driveway type".

Your building supply center should have sand in 90# bags labeled 20 mesh (coarse) or 30 mesh (less coarse). If this is open blasting, wear a mask and don't dust out the neighbors.

Stuart

Dont. Use. Sand. :mad:

Go to a farm supply or industrial supply and get some glass bead or aluminum oxide or crushed garnet for blasting. Sand contains free silica, which can lead to silicosis unless you're using a VERY good respiration system. Not worth the risk, blasting media isn't expensive.

I used garnet on mine. The finer the sand, the less profile you get. This is always the best when blasting panels.
Brendon

Listen to GMCpanel. I use crushed walnuts, but I think you need something a little stronger like the aluminum oxide or garnet.

not mean'n to interupt good advise to evac 34 but was interested in the purchase of a "in the drive way type" and saw those small siphon blasters(around 50$)in the j.c. whit. catalog,anybody using this type or suggest a descent type to use for small jobs,wheels,rear ends,etc.

There is a thread on this site on building a sandblaster that supposedly uses less air than a pressure system and works better.

Before you start sandblasting yourself I suggest calling the nearest monument company, the people that make headstones..., they can blast your stuff for cheap and fast. The company near me charges $70/hour and can do 2 brake drums in 5 minutes or less with their huge compressor and sandblasting booth.

I paid $100 for them to blast my entire cab, inside and out, plus a lot of other parts.

burntclutch,

NM51 does not speak with forked tongue. If you want a setup yourself I would say this, even the smallest sandblaster uses vast quantities of air..waiting for the Harbor Freight 2CFM unit to pump back up can lead to anal implosion.

Sears used to make a small syphon feed unit that held about 1/3 of a bag of sand (#90). It was small enough to hide in the corner of the shop, but would clean up a brake drum or exhaust manifold pretty quick.

As my dear old dad used to say.."take my advice and suit yerself".

Stuart

NM51 is right. If you already have the small blasting kit, then i suggest you buy a 25kg bag of garnet. The bags we use are labeled GN 030-060. The finer the better. There is very minimal dust from garnet. However for parts like that, if you can get them blasted with someone who does that every day you could get them put in with another job, we usually charge a 4 pac off JD for the job
brendon

A 4 pack of Jack Daniels..........whoa nellie!


Down-under-Stu

I use a pressure pot and an 50 gal. 7hp air compressor and it still has a hard time keeping up. I stopped doing it because of the mess and that the darn nozzle keeps getting clogged with foreign matter that always gets in your media. I will use it as a last resort. I am trying to find a media blaster near Vero Beach Florida, though I never thought of a monument company. I will be calling a few tomorrow. There should be plenty of those companies around here!

I have the 90 lb siphon blaster I bought from Eastwood about 3 years ago. It does pretty good with my 80 gal 7hp 175cfm compressor but pressure blasting is better. I recently seen where Eastwood now has a small pressue blaster for around the same price I paid for a siphon blaster back then. I think the pressure blasters were $119. The small stuff I use glass beads and I'm lucky enought to have one of the Skat-Blast cabinets to do it with. I love it and the dust is sucked out into a canister and bag.

NM51,
You were right, the first monument company I called was happy to do extra blasting. I thought they would think I was crazy! Thanks for the idea!
A.chipmunk, what size is your Skat-Blast cabinet? Where did you get it? I was looking at a bench model from Eastwood but it seems too small.

jomichael,

Make sure the monument company knows the difference between blasting sheet metal and blasting Italian marble...

Stuart

Yeah, i am only giving him the frame, axles, transfer case, etc. Then I will give him an old fender and see what happens. He said he does stuff for a chopper shop. We will see! Thanks for the advice.

Boy, you guys are good. I never would have thunk of a monument company. Got one right in town. Guess I'll start haulin' parts into'em. -thanks

Yeah. This is the best darn website. We have a monument maker here in Walla Walla, and I bet they'll be glad to do the frame on my old '51. Thank you.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...0918635000&tab=des#tabs--------check out this thread from sears online. Nice little blaster for around 50 bucks--don't take a lot of air to run......
resto44