New (to me) HF sandblaster

Trevlaw · Jun 8, 2022

Vtx531 said:
I just looked, it says 11.5cfm. It's just a common light duty 60 gallon Sanborn. Nothing special. Might get another one someday to go in tandem if I ever need more CFM. That would be 20+Cfm with 120gallon tank capacity and be cheaper than a single "big" unit while being more manageable for moving/storage space. And if something breaks or I need to sell, it would be cheaper and easier.

Thanks for the other tips. Still haven't tried evaporust but heard a lot of good things. Lots of local gravel pits I'll have to call and check.

Nice, I ran 9.0cfm with the TP tools small size nozzle and it worked well, never had to stop and wait for the compressor to catch up, just ran a lot.

I've got 17cfm now with their medium nozzle and it's quite a bit faster, doesn't feel like I'm using a pencil eraser lol.

For big stuff outside the pressure washer sandblaster attachment can't be beat. Will blow through 100lbs of sand in just a few minutes

williambmac · Jun 13, 2022

Vtx531 said:
I'm still at it -

I bought one of those little gravity pistol gun spot blasters a while ago and it works pretty good but the hopper is just too small.

Yesterday, I bought one of the HF open bucket style, on sale ~$25. I tried it out with coal slag. It took about half a bag to blast a rear tow hook and I was able to recover a lot of the media by using a tarp as it was recommended above (post #4!) I've read conflicting reports about being able to reuse coal slag.

One mod I did to the bucket blaster was drastically shorten the hose to 3'.

Another BIG improvement is I now have a 60 gallon compressor and it works really well! Especially with die grinder, cutoff wheels, needle scaler - total game changer.

I have yet to try the pot blaster with the 60 gallon compressor. I need to get a new valve because I ruined the original one by trying to meter air with the ball valve instead of having it full on or full off. What an amateur move!

Pretty happy with how the towhook turned out but it is more pitted than I expected. Bought it on ebay from deadjeepparts and it came black spraybombed over the rust. Forgot to take a before photo.

View attachment 335747

Thats the same one I bought. It works really well for what it is. I'm using it to clean up some rusty seams under the Jeep. Only downside it the amount of media it uses.

JMT · Jun 13, 2022

williambmac said:
Thats the same one I bought. It works really well for what it is. I'm using it to clean up some rusty seams under the Jeep. Only downside it the amount of media it uses.

Yeah, like where is all the media going? Where are you at when you sandblast?

PCO6 · Jun 14, 2022

JMT said:
Yeah, like where is all the media going? Where are you at when you sandblast?

It goes "everywhere"! I use a small tent that's intended to catch overspray when painting. It helps but a lot of the media gets air bourn and escapes. I lay a tarp down first and it helps me recapture about half of the media. I blast larger items in my back yard behind the garage. It's best to limit your time and hope the neighbours aren't home.

williambmac · Jun 14, 2022

JMT said:
Yeah, like where is all the media going? Where are you at when you sandblast?

I'm doing small sections under the tub, mainly body seams and supports. I've got the rear up on jack stands and I'm lying on my back doing it.
I'm using black aluminum oxide and the shit isn't cheap. A 50lb bucket is $70.00.
I wish I had an indoor facility and a lift, would make life a lot easier. I'm in a townhome community, so my neighbors love me.

Vtx531 · Jun 14, 2022

williambmac said:
I'm doing small sections under the tub, mainly body seams and supports. I've got the rear up on jack stands and I'm lying on my back doing it.
I'm using black aluminum oxide and the shit isn't cheap. A 50lb bucket is $70.00.
I wish I had an indoor facility and a lift, would make life a lot easier. I'm in a townhome community, so my neighbors love me.

$70?! Does it work that much better than coal slag to pay so much? You can resuse it unlimited times?

williambmac · Jun 14, 2022

Vtx531 said:
$70?! Does it work that much better than coal slag to pay so much? You can resuse it unlimited times?

I’ve never tried the coal slag. It was a choice between black oxide of pecan shells.
Reusing is next to impossible when your lying on your back in the driveway. I tried a tarp but it doesn’t catch very much.

Trevlaw · Jun 15, 2022

williambmac said:
I’ve never tried the coal slag. It was a choice between black oxide of pecan shells.
Reusing is next to impossible when your lying on your back in the driveway. I tried a tarp but it doesn’t catch very much.

Harbor freight has 50lb bags of blasting media cheaper than that. $15 for 50lb is kind of expensive, $70 is insane

D.Flynn · Jun 20, 2022

Inspect the areas well before painting. Anything black (small dots), or where moisture has splattered out of the tip will likely rust under the paint. The black is likely rust (especially in pitted areas). Usually, a quick pass back over the part will quickly remove it and its ready to clean and paint.

D.Flynn · Jun 20, 2022

Inspect the areas well before painting. Anything black (small dots), or where moisture has splattered out of the tip will likely rust under the paint. The black is likely rust (especially in pitted areas). Usually, a quick pass back over the part will quickly remove it and its ready to clean and paint.

Vtx531 · Jul 18, 2022

D.Flynn said:
Inspect the areas well before painting. Anything black (small dots), or where moisture has splattered out of the tip will likely rust under the paint. The black is likely rust (especially in pitted areas). Usually, a quick pass back over the part will quickly remove it and its ready to clean and paint.

Battery tray! Lots of small pitted areas with rust dots though so it sounds like I need to go over it again?

Vtx531 · Jul 19, 2022

I sprayed the battery tray with phosphoric acid, let it sit 3 min, wiped it down with a blue disposable shop rag. Hopefully that will help out with the little rust dot pits and keep it good until I get a chance to paint it in a few days/weeks.

I did my towhook too with the phosphoric acid. It had been stored bare metal in a ziplock bag since I blasted it on June 8 and seemed to getting some corrosion again.

After the acid:

D.Flynn · Jul 19, 2022

Vtx531 said:
Battery tray! Lots of small pitted areas with rust dots though so it sounds like I need to go over it again?

View attachment 343974

View attachment 343975

View attachment 343976

Yes, keep spraying until all the brown specs are gone. That’s rust. Your getting there!

Vtx531 · Jul 30, 2022

Got more time in with the sandblaster today. I worked on my grill, grill support, and the rods that go across the engine compartment. Worked great!

Didn't go back yet and do the towhook and battery tray again.

Here is the only before pic. I already did around some of the bolt holes but you get the idea.

After pics

Perfect? No. A lot better than it was? YES
Couple more before pics I just found:

Gortch66 · Sep 15, 2022

Vtx531 said:
I tried it out on the frame today. It worked really good for a while but then it clogged. I bought some of the coal slag media to use. It was more of a mess than the sand.

I discovered that I will need to do the entire frame if I want a uniform look. Possibly bondo the pitting if I really want it to look smooth (doubt I will do that). I just covered it up with Krykon Fusion Satin for now but my goal is to sand blast the whole frame and use Eastwood black epoxy primer over the bare metal.

View attachment 275700

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If you get online and search for mods there are several for both the pot and cabinet. They worked well on mine but still doesn’t work on coal slag.

Vtx531 · Jan 3, 2023

Just an update:

1. The grill, towhook, battery tray, doors, tailgate, I re-blasted them in a professional booth. (pressure blaster with 1/4" nozzle') and got it all much cleaner. I've since painted them and all came out good. That info is in another thread.

2. I bought a HF cabinet. Normally $230 and I used a 25%off anything new years coupon for $172 total.

I put it all together and spent A LOT of time getting everything lined up loosely and then tightening all the screws down good.

I did one mod so far and that was to add a switch box and flood lamp. I like to do things with as little drilling and cutting as possible. All I had to do was enlarge the wiring hole for conduit size and I used the two outside holes for mounting the 4" box. (They are over four inches apart and that's why I mounted the box at a diagonal to fit the holes. Came out nice and clean if I do say so myself.

And the lamp holder... I tried with multiple different types of bulbs. Glass halogen floodlight seems to work the best and provides no glaring light in your eyes (unlike the photo).

I was thinking of modding it to fit my pot blaster hose in there but as it was already said earlier in the thread, probably not worth the trouble and the cabinet is for little small intricate items anyways.

I haven't tried the gun that came with it yet but might end up using the gun that came with my HF bucket blaster. That one seems to be much higher quality and similar design to the TP tools gun that everyone loves. Added an inline blow off under the handle too.

$20 worth of plumbing fittings and vac reducer to get hooked up to my shop vac. The hose end is only 1.25". Not really a mod but necessary expense to get everything hooked up. Got a foam gasket from the electrical section that fits too. Just loose in this pic, I need to get longer bolts because of the thickness of the foam gasket.

Just need to get everything sealed up now. I have a few tubes of polyurethane sealant ready to go. I plan on using my automotive smoke machine to make sure it is sealed up 100%.

Obviously haven't tried it yet but I really think the vast majority of negative reviews on this thing are people that don't put it together well and don't know the principles of how to operate a blast cabinet. Looking forward to giving this thing a go.

One gripe so far is the door latch doesnt fit at all.

Vtx531 · Jan 5, 2023

Only needed one tube. Found a few leaks with the smoke machine and I got everything sealed up pretty well. Needs a few days to cure now.

Vtx531 · Jan 12, 2023

Almost ready to try it out.

Did one more modification today that I think is critical:

Adjustable damper for the air inlet- This allows me to fine tune the amount of negative pressure in the cabinet. Cost $5.

And a makeshift temporary slack tube manometer to measure the suction. I went with .5"-.75" water column. I got this figure from a Clemco blast cabinet manual. Cost $0

I think this is key to a dust free area around the cabinet. It comes from the factory with a big giant hole for intake that is capable of enough airflow for any size vacuum or dust collector to keep the unit from collapsing under excessive negative pressure. But the hole is so big that there isn't hardly ANY negative pressure at all.

You can see the damper is blocking off about half of the opening just to get the small (but important) bit of negative pressure. If you tried to use it as it comes, with the giant intake opening and especially without sealing all the cracks/seams, it's not hard to imagine that while there is airflow from hooking up a vacuum, there would be no negative pressure at all in the cabinet.

It's all just theoretical until I try it out.

Vtx531 · Jan 15, 2023

Two thumbs up!!

Installed a small water seperator and pressure regulator/gauge. (Also have a bigger water separator after 50' of hose that does most of the work, and another one right off the compressor output that doesn't do much).

The HF gun works well but leaks air. Need to figure out why. I blasted most of these swaybar mounts at only 50psi (static with the trigger not pulled). Had to crank it up to 80psi to get some hard spots. Very nice to be able to easily adjust the blast pressure.

Ah, that's better. The bad spots actually weren't in the before pic.

Got a rubber patio paver tile at Menards for $3 to use as a pad to blast on. Works great! The clamp is to help hold the parts and keep my gloves away from the direct blast.

Visibility while blasting is amazing. Light output completely adequate. No leakage or dust problems. Here is an action shot still-frame from a video I took:

Vtx531 · Jan 15, 2023

Sway bar bushings? They had some rusty nastiness stuck on them.

Not anymore! Actually needed higher pressure to do these ~ 80psi

Checked the shop vac. There was some media in it but not a whole lot and it looks like mostly fine dust which is exactly what it is supposed to do.

New (to me) HF sandblaster

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