media blasting rental

Have any of you ever rented a media blaster/soda/sand blaster? If you have or if you have experience with blasting, is there a certain technique you use or would recommend? Do places even rent blasters?

 

No clue about renting, but once upon a time (still interested actually), I was planning to buy a small sand blasting cabinet just to make cleaning my suppressor easier, but it really came down to also needing to buy a new compressor as well, so that kinda put a damper on things until I can get a larger compressor.

For cabinets, I really doubt you'll be able to rent one, as that seems to fall more into the permanent structure type of thing, like a drill press or table saw. If you're looking more for an outside one, you might have a chance, but depending on what you're doing, you might be able to get away with a cheapy one from Harbor Freight. No matter which way you go, the compressor is going to be the main concern as it's going to have to be able to keep up with your usage (or you're going to have a lot of downtime waiting). Even if you get one with a tank on it, you're still reliant on how fast your compressor can fill up the tank vs how long it takes you to empty it.

On that side note, many shops have a sandblasting cabinet if you need to do some small-medium pieces. Might end up being cheaper than renting/buying one.

Just depends what you need it for and what you have as far as a compressor goes.

As far as technique, if you think about it like you're painting with a sprayer/spray can, even strokes (maybe not so long), overlapping a little between each pass, I think that'd be the most efficient. Besides that, distance and how fast you can go will depend greatly on what media, material you're removing, and base material.

 

You're a lot of help.

 

Yeah I was checking at harbor freight, they have some attachment ones that go with your air compressor. I'm going to blast my wheels, they are pitted and stained.

 

Yeah my boss rented one so i could strip the paint off of his chimney. Most large rental places should carry them, however the one i used was enormous. It also required a large compressor that needed to be towed to his house. The blaster itself is heavy as shit and the bags of shot are 100lbs a piece. Also make sure to wear the included mask, since it creates a huge mess.

Not sure what your application will be, but i'm sure they come in various sizes. They work great just keep moving since it will dig in fast.

 

I'm just going to soda blast. I'm just gonna buy an attachment from harbor freight for my compressor. Hopefully it will work.

 

This is the unit I got, hopefully it works.

 

What size of compressor do you have? 7 CFM @ 90psi is a pretty large requirement unless you have a large tank.

 

I have a 2 gallon compressor at 110psi. I tested it when I got home today, I don't think its gonna get the job done. I'll prob have to rent a larger air compressor.

 

Should baking soda be able to get rust off, or should I go with sand for rust?

 

Ya. With 2 gals at 110psi, you'll be able to run it about 5-10 sec before you drop below the 7cfm @ 90psi the thing is setup at. Doable, yes, but not very realistic. Maybe it has adjustments to lower either the cfm or psi so you can use it longer, or maybe even install a smaller nozzle to lower its cfm reqs.

At the bare minimum, I'd say you'd need a 20 gal tank with a motor that can sustain 5cfm @90psi to get any sort of realistic use out of it with some downtime. Something like that should be able to use air tools pretty decent for garage use as well. Of course the bigger the better, and there probably isn't much price difference between a 20 gal and a 30 gal. If you can get one that the motor outputs 7cfm @ 90psi, you'll potentially have no downtime (although it doesn't really work like that due to how air compresses, but it should be close).

I take it since you're talking about rust, the wheels are steel, but just want to make sure since some people could mean brake dust discoloration or other things like that and just lump it in as rust to make it easy. The harder the media, the faster it'll remove rust, but also the faster you can damage the original material. Your media will depend more on the original metal than what you want to take off since if you go too course, you'll be removing original material.

The softest you can get would be walnut. Aluminum oxide (sand) would be the next harder, which comes in different sizes like sandpaper. 220 grit is pretty common. Then you have glass beads, which also come in different sizes (80 grit is the common). Of course there's many many other types of media, but those seem to be the easiest to get.

I'd be reluctant to start with beads, as 80 grit is fairly course. I'd see what 220 grit does and go from there. Depending on how bad the rust is, you may not have much of a choice. You can always do a quick/fast run with 80 for the large/bad areas, and follow it up with 220 after for the finer work. I think walnut would be too soft for steel, but might give it bit of a polish.

Just make sure you try it on something that doesn't matter before you take it to the wheels. Also, just because it says you should run it at 90psi, doesn't mean you need to. Depending on how tough stuff is, you may find it better to run it slightly lower or higher, if you have controls on either your compressor or the sprayer. In addition, you can control it a bit with distance as well.

You're going to make one hell of a mess with the media, just so you know. At the very minimum, get some sealed eye protection and breathing protection. Media is going to be all over the place and coat everything, even worse than paint in a spray booth. Just because of clean up, I'd suggest doing it out in the yard, opposed to a shed or garage.



Overall, since its pretty much just a one time thing, I'd really recommend taking it to pretty much any auto painting place and let them do it for you. You'll be a lot cheaper in the long run.

 

Yea i've tried the soda on my wheels, and it won't even touch them, so I'm going to use sand. Can I just pick up a bag of fine sand at home depot or does it have to be something special?

 

I suppose you could and it might work, but I really dont think sand is going to be consistent in texture to use for blasting. If you were doing the side of a shipping container or something, I'd say go for it, but for something you want to look nice, just go down to Harbor Freight and pick up the right stuff for the job. It's not that expensive.

Well, it does look like Home Depot sells abrasive blasters, so they probably have the correct type of media as well. I just wouldn't recommend getting some playground type of sand and using that. Use something thats made for abrasive blasting.