The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Water sand blasting

Has anyone tried water sand blasting for paint / rust removal?
body panels
rims
frame??????

We still need someone to do it and report back about it...
A good test of how it was treated afterwards would help.
Raw
rustoleum primer
epoxy primer
How long till rust or other failure?
Volunteer?

We use it at work for various application. I will have to see about the possibility of testing some rusted cold rolled... (I do not have high hopes - Expensive machine/backlog of work)

Just some of my thoughts:

The benefits I see of water/sand blasting vs. sand blasting is the ability of the water to drive the sand particles through small part features (In my case small holes). Every part we process gets acid etched after processing.

I would be skeptical doing this with body panels because of there is a significant amount of water pressure being used. Frame/Rims should work fine I can not speak to the correct way to prep before paint though.

I used to work for a company that hydroblasted (think pressure washer on steroids) on occasion we'd run it with a sand pot. Be really careful with it, I'd suggest trying it on some scrap of the same sized material before you go all out. It will warp thin steel, if it's ran too long in the same spot it will remove enough metal to make thin spots and possibly cut through. If the pressure is above 10k I wouldn't use it on anything smaller than 22 gauge. As for rust times we got flash rust immediately after, I don't remember the name of the product we treated it with to minimize the flashing and if your primer mil thickness doesnt completely cover the profiled metal you will get rust.

Hey Dusty,

I first tried this over 20 years ago with my 57 truck bed. It worked fantastic. A few years ago, I found an attachment for home pressure washer for wet sand blasting. I used this on my 51 burb on my driveway. My HOA neighbors wern't to pleased but the results are flawless. The dust is minimal being that its wet.

Thank you everyone.

I have experience with this. I purchased a dustless blaster last year and have blasted the entire chassis and body of my 55 Chevy 2nd series truck with it.