Vapor Blasting Cabinet

[archimeech]

Ed, your list of trucks is making me jealous. My son wants an old F1

The attachment for your pressure washer works great, but isn't a finishing process and you sacrifice the blasting media. with the booth, I'll be able to take it to a nice finish and reuse the glass bead till it crushes.

[Ed ke6bnl]

Yup, sand is good for taking off paint in a hurry, but it is not a smooth finish though. But I'll bet it was great for putting bed liner on to though. The link I found and posted was interesting to read through about the different media and the finish they provide.

How did your Wally World set up feed the sand Ed? Was it like a drip cup attachment or? I wonder how your setup would do with glass beads? BTW is was pointed out that the glass media HF sells is really crushed glass so does not provide the finish real beads do. As with all things,the devil is in the details.

It was 15 years ago that I did this and was always wondering why no one else talked about this procedure, no heat no warping and I just used plain sandbox sand for just a couple of dollars or so for a 40 lb. bag. and just brushed the sand when dry to the dirt around the driveway. from what I recall I just put a metal tube in a 5 gallon bucket of sand. worked perfect not problems. I tried the large pressure blaster I had, worked but was concerned about destroying the metal. I did watch a couple of videos on this now and they are a little beefier then what I had, but far a large item this seemed like a very safe way to do this without breathing in all that silica. I have good size blast cabinet maybe 2.5 x4 ft. but not big enough for this project.

[C-Bag]

It was 15 years ago that I did this and was always wondering why no one else talked about this procedure, no heat no warping and I just used plain sandbox sand for just a couple of dollars or so for a 40 lb. bag. and just brushed the sand when dry to the dirt around the driveway. from what I recall I just put a metal tube in a 5 gallon bucket of sand. worked perfect not problems. I tried the large pressure blaster I had, worked but was concerned about destroying the metal. I did watch a couple of videos on this now and they are a little beefier then what I had, but far a large item this seemed like a very safe way to do this without breathing in all that silica. I have good size blast cabinet maybe 2.5 x4 ft. but not big enough for this project.

Interesting it could pick up the sand by just siphon if I get your meaning. My medium size HF blast cab works on siphon and is not to my liking.

Everything has a price and there is no free lunch. I don't do big stuff and don't have room to store something huge so I see no need to go this route. But it's really interesting and caught my attention. My next jump will be to get one of the smaller HF pressure blasters ($70 on sale)and mod the bottom of my blast cab to dump into the pressure bottle. Seal back and do a run, rinse and repeat(no water. I also have a cyclone I made for filtering the dust so there is no dust hazard.

[Ed ke6bnl]

Interesting it could pick up the sand by just siphon if I get your meaning. My medium size HF blast cab works on siphon and is not to my liking.

Everything has a price and there is no free lunch. I don't do big stuff and don't have room to store something huge so I see no need to go this route. But it's really interesting and caught my attention. My next jump will be to get one of the smaller HF pressure blasters ($70 on sale)and mod the bottom of my blast cab to dump into the pressure bottle. Seal back and do a run, rinse and repeat(no water. I also have a cyclone I made for filtering the dust so there is no dust hazard.

I have the Dust Deputy and I really like it, BUT I found what seems like a smaller unit at Bangood.com for under $20 that makes it worth buying versus making. I had an old broken stainless steel vacuum and I put a plate over the top and mounted the cyclone on that and it opens easily to empty. I have collected water with it and other than being bulky is a great addition to the blast cabinet.

[PJs]

Everything has a price and there is no free lunch. I don't do big stuff and don't have room to store something huge so I see no need to go this route. But it's really interesting and caught my attention. My next jump will be to get one of the smaller HF pressure blasters ($70 on sale)and mod the bottom of my blast cab to dump into the pressure bottle.

My son picked up one of the $100 media blasters at HFT when we were doing the front end on his 65 Malibu SS and tried various media (glass, ALO2, & walnut) to get the finish we wanted. It worked great for all the pieces but messy as heck and uses some CFM...6 was barely enough. For that type of stuff I suggested a portable/folding frame of PVC tube and covered with visqeen or maybe some of those Sale tarps they have to make a 3-5 sided booth. Most of the parts including the sway bar and springs came out ready for powder coat but did have some wire wheel/scotch brite disc work around the recesses & A arm bushings holes (taped off).

I have an old Craftsman siphon feed set up with a small canister for the gun which runs on reasonably CFM and low pressure with the canister. It has worked well on small stuff but a bit unwieldy because of the hoses.

The nice idea of this build to me is the re-circulation of the wet slurry keeping the dust level minimal. Also If I understand properly it bypasses the nozzle and mixed with the water pressure at the tip so the tip should last a long time with better/finer atomization?

Archimeech; You mentioned an argon bottle and it shows in the pics...are you using this for your pressure somewhere in the system?

Thanks, ~PJ

[archimeech]

Argon is for the Stainless Mig for the cabinet. I've run through quite a bit of it stitching all the sheets together.

[Jon]

Rare build! We only have two other homemade vapor blaster builds listed in the encyclopedia. Here they are for ideas:

Vapor Blaster by Luders on KR-1S.co.uk

Vapor Blaster by Roger-SA on TriumphRat.net

[C-Bag]

Good ones Jon. I like the idea of using 55gal drums but would use metal ones instead of the plastic. Still both were more detailed about the build and not about the specifics of the agitation and the pumps. One guy said he used a pool pump but like my main concern, had to replace the seals all the time. It's an interesting proposition how you would keep everything from clogging and deteriorating. Glass beads are tough to get completely clean and I don't use them on anything that's going to have oil circulating because I've seen first hand what a minute quantity can do to an engine. Turns them into a boat anchor in minutes. Any way you do it, it's gonna be messy

[Toolmaker51]

Vapor honing is an offshoot of "ExtrudeHone"; pressurized abrasive slurry to perform contoured metal removal, to form, size, deburr, polish. aka Abrasive Flow Machining. Home - Extrude Hone

Most stunning demos intake runners and cylinder head ports. There isn't an actual nozzle per se', the slurry 100% fills and moves through the opening/s/, following original or desired contours. Compared to porting with a die grinder; are no flats, divots or axial facets. Also operates externally, ie gear polishing.

Another process called 'Vibra-Hone' uses formed ceramic stones, mild detergent and water. Like a rock polisher on steroids, but instead of rolling, an upright tub vivivivibrates about a vertical axis. Works on all kinds of material, great on steel and aluminum. On something like an engine case, sealing surfaces would require final machining.

[Toolmaker51]

Good ones Jon. I like the idea of using 55gal drums but would use metal ones instead of the plastic

Wouldn't wet media be cleaner in a poly vice ferrous container?
And far as pumps go, what are materials for seals, cylinder and vanes in concrete pumps?