The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Best Blasting Media?

I searched to forums, and couldn't really find what I'm looking for. What the best blasting media for paint/rust removal, and where's the easiest places to get it?

I was looking at Aluminum Oxide, and thought it might be availiable at home depot... Oh and how much does this stuff cost? arm? leg? both?

how much blasting you got to do? Got a BIG air conpessor? It is REALLY messey and slow if you don't have pro. equ.. It's not so much what you shoot it's how you shoot it. You can get any of it to hot if your in one spot to long. I have a small blaster and a big conp. But I take my stuff to a pro. last car he did for use (38 coupe) cost around 350 buck. it was worth that to me not to mess with it. To answer your ? the Alum. ox. is fine. I've been reading alot about blasting with dry ice with good results and less mess.

I use two different products one is blast sand that they use on stucco finishs. This I use on heavier metals. #30 Mesh Sand. The other is a product called Black Diamond I use this on light small products. This is used on a small hand one quart sand blaster from Harbor Freight Co. This Black Diamond product is from a mine which is a by product and has less that 2% Silica in it but I still use a resperator. The Dry Ice would be very, very expensive in my area for sure. The Compressor I use is a two stage with a 60 gallon tank with 160 psi. output. The blaster is a medium size from HF. It holds 3/4 of a bag of sand at a time. If the body is really rusty they have a dip process that works too but I have had it done.
62Blue
Don

Bryan, a search on sandblasting should give you enough info to read for two days. This question comes up fairly often. If you have RUST my OPINION is sandblasting. A professional will not cost anymore in the long run than you buying the blaster & sand. Especially if this is a mainly a one time deal. I HAD a pressurized blaster... use it on one chassis and said enough. You HAVE to be able to get plenty of DRY air. (the old gravity fed siphon type will do small things.

Hers MY experience and everyone seems to be different. PLASTIC media will NOT take of anything but paint! It would not even take off a light, oxidized palm print, left on the firewall. I have been there, done that and paid the price to find out. (Last summer it was $85 per hour plus the media.
Black Diamond is very aggressive for the worst rust and its expensive costing between $8 and $9 a 50lb bag here in Spartanburg from Tractor Supply. I used one bag and the other one is under my blasting cabinet. I'll probably never use it.

I do use glass beads for "sensitive" parts but not for rust.

Sand will get it off. I buy mine from a local concrete mixing place. The bags I get have "Sterling" brand name on them. This sand is sized so it will not clog up your lines like play sand or river sand... AND it only cost $3.28 for a 50lb bag. It comes in Medium, Fine, and Extra Fine. I keep a bag or two of the Medium on hand but I mainly use the Fine.

One place overlooked by most is the place that does Monuments. The local momument place here has a guy thats been doing it for over 20 years and cost $100 per hour. Sounds like alot per hour but they have the equipment and can get a LOT done in an hour. The price includes the sand.

Dipping: some say this is the best way but the greatest fear is that some of the solution will leach out from places and ruin the paint jobs later in life! Its said if its wash/rinsed good there is no problem. I have also seen post on here that some paint companies will not guarantee the their paint on acid dipped cars. I believe someone posted the statement here from an actual paint company a while back. It is also expensive so buyer beware.

Well, what I have not covered I'm sure someone else will. It will mainly depend just how bad of situation you have on your hands.

I have a pressure pot sand blaster. The air compresor I have is rated at about eleven/twelve CFM's @ 100 lbs. This compressor is not rated for continue use so I give it a break every ten minutes or so and let the compressor cool off as needed.
I use white sylica sand which can be bought in either course or fine texture. The cost of an eighty pound bag cost me $5.69 / bag at the local hardwarew store. I just finished a Ford 861 tractor and used some twelve bags and blasted some or all the sheet metal parts, tie rods, power steering cylinders, fenders, front and back wheels and all the other stuff needed for a ground up restoration. I got the entire project done for a material cost of less than seventy dollars. Al works great and I find that using the fine texture sand works best for removing rusted parts and finish.

Bryan:
I don't know how this site feels about linking to other sites, but here is an extensive discussion of your question from some folks that are apparently in this business:

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/yall-scared-sandblast-out-me-161828.html

You might also try the search function here as this subject has been discussed extensively.

I hope this is helpful.
Regards,
Steve
New Orleans

I had good luck on my 53 with the HF small blaster, holds about two pounds of sand, using fine sand. Just keep moving and keep it away from straight head on blasting. I was thinking the next project is going to get a tarp room built for blasting. there's sand in my garage that will never find it's way out.

Thanks Guys.

The main focus of this post is my gas tank. The inside has been re-lined, but the outside needs a little TLC. I tried to prime it already, but had adhesion problems, probably caused by cheap primer and a humid day. I just wanted to get the rust/paint off before re-priming. I've borrowed my Father-in-Law's craftsman siphon set-up, but I'm using my own TINY Air compressor. The siphon already had some regular old sand in it, and it works OK, except it can't cut well enough to get all the rust off. From what I've read, the Green Lightning, Starblast, and Black Diamond are the best, and really not as expensive as I thought they would be.


What air pressure should I be blasting at?

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

Yea Denny, definitely sounds like you been there ,done that! i thought it would be no problem to blast my whole 62 with my harbor freight 20 lb. pot and 60 gal compressor...HAHA! the lessons we learn! 5 months of straight weekends, burned up my compressor motor, fortunately , i got the warranty on it but i had to hound H.F. for months for the rebate on the motor i had to find myself. i made my own nozzle from 1/2 inch threaded pipe with a brass shut off valve, went thru 2 valves. i used sand from home depot... dozens of bags..but it was 3.50 a bag. i was happy with how it came out but man, what a tedious,messy job..just had to keep thinking of the finished product (someday!)if i was going to do this regularly, i would spring for the pro equipment for sure.i think d.a.ing the truck would have been even more of a drag, and not as thurough...Mark

Denny, tell us what you really think about it..... I'm with you, my local monument place blast all my stuff at 1 buck a min.. I've done the whole DYI also (and I have a big compresser that runs at 175psi) and it stills not worth it to me for the mess.

AAMEN Brother! Now you know why I sold my 100 lb pressurized pot for HALF price. I'll pay the monument guy and save my sanity. If it don't or wont' go in my bead blasting cabiner it goes on the back of my truck for trip to town......