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Posted by: mepstein Sep 7 2016, 11:22 AM

I originally started using this for my aluminum motorcycle parts but when my boss saw a 3.2 intake he asked me to send out some pieces from the shop. We just got back two 67S sand cast aluminum cases. They aren't painted but they almost look that way. The vapor blast is a pressurized wet mixture of micro glass bead, water and soap. Done in a big tank. It polishes the metal vs leaving a rough finish like regular glass bead. It's also safe for internal engine areas. No residue. The guy I send the parts to is $60/hour and the exterior of the engine case took 2.5 hours. Intakes were 1 hour for the pair. My 40 year old motorcycle parts look like new. (Except for bigger scratches).


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Posted by: rhodyguy Sep 7 2016, 12:57 PM

Those turned out really nice! Do you have to contend with the oil passage ways or do they squirt the media thru those too?

Posted by: mepstein Sep 7 2016, 01:22 PM

We asked him just to do the outside of the case because ours was just for cosmetics but on my motorcycle case I had him do inside and out. It leaves the inside looking like new without any residue. He also uses a sonic cleaner so all the passages are cleaned.

There are a couple people around the country but after checking them out I settled on this guy - http://noreasterblastworx.com
His name is also Mark and he's in New Hampshire. He's been very easy to work with. If you do decide to contact him, he often takes a day or two to return the message.

Posted by: Tom_T Sep 7 2016, 03:57 PM

Looks like a good answer for our aluminum fan shrouds too - in order to not get a polished look to them, in addition to engine & transaxle cases, etc.


Tom
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Posted by: Mueller Sep 7 2016, 07:03 PM

Parts look great....I don't like the name! Not a vapor process

Water+compressed air+glass bead ≠ vapor

Posted by: mepstein Sep 7 2016, 07:08 PM

I didn't name it. Seems to be the name used in the motorcycle/industry that makes the device.

Posted by: r_towle Sep 7 2016, 07:14 PM

I wonder if my car would fit

Posted by: mepstein Sep 7 2016, 07:30 PM

Here's some of the drum brake parts I sent and one before photo.

I started researching this because the aluminum parts on my bike were heavily oxidized but the fins on the engine case and hubs made palishing very difficult. Traditional bead blasting didn't have the finish I wanted. The vapor blasting did. The Porsche aluminum turned out much brighter silver than the Italian motorcycle parts.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Sep 8 2016, 12:51 PM

The 911 fan and the /4 fan shroud is magnesium, without a coating of some kind they will look like crap again in no time.

Posted by: JmuRiz Sep 8 2016, 01:34 PM

Hit it (mag parts) with some gibbs and you should be good to go right?

Posted by: mepstein Sep 8 2016, 01:39 PM

Gibbs is ok stuff but mag is still going to deteriorate.

Posted by: 914dave Sep 9 2016, 10:39 AM

Mark,
The intakes look great! What are you coating them with?
Dave

Posted by: mepstein Sep 9 2016, 11:11 AM

He gave me some spray. It's a Gibbs like product.

Posted by: mepstein May 30 2019, 01:13 PM

I just started working on my second motorcycle rebuild. This time, instead of sending out the parts for vapor blasting, I can do it “in house”.
First step is cleaning. The shop ultrasonic cleaner is big enough for a Porsche engine so my little 350 was easy.


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Posted by: mepstein May 30 2019, 01:14 PM

It came out of the tank clean but ugly.


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Posted by: mepstein May 30 2019, 01:15 PM

The vapor blast machine was just serviced so 5 minutes on each piece was enough to make it pretty again.




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Posted by: mepstein May 30 2019, 01:18 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845 - ready for your carbs

Posted by: bbrock May 30 2019, 01:54 PM

That's awesome! The before looks just like my carb bodies. Going to try to tear down and clean the second carb tomorrow. I need something to get my mind off the brake caliper fiasco

Posted by: Nacho May 30 2019, 04:20 PM

I'm in the aerospace precision cleaning business and we never ultrasonic aluminum. What you see on the surface of the aluminum are cavitation marks generated by small implosions that are super hot in excess of 300F on the aluminum when the ultrasonics are on. Excessive exposure to sonication can generate pits and even cracks on the surface of the aluminum. When cleaning aluminum and ultrasonic cleaning is desired, its best to only do small burst 15-20 seconds of sonication at a time but not to exceed more that a few minutes in total for the cleaning.

Posted by: gandalf_025 May 30 2019, 04:59 PM

There is a gentleman on the international CBX Web site
In Arizona that does vapor blasting, if you are more local to
There... goes by the name noble hops I think..

Posted by: mepstein May 30 2019, 05:01 PM

Thank you for the education.

Posted by: rjames May 30 2019, 10:19 PM

Posted by: jkb944t May 31 2019, 11:09 AM

Thanks for sharing!

Jeff B

Posted by: Gint Nov 21 2020, 09:35 AM

With Herr Mueller. The first time I heard the phrase vapor blasting, I had something very different in mind until I started googling.

Very interested in this process.

Posted by: mepstein Nov 21 2020, 11:26 AM

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Posted by: JOEPROPER Nov 21 2020, 11:35 AM

That looks Awesome!!!

Posted by: mepstein Nov 21 2020, 11:44 AM

It’s started out like this



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Posted by: Gint Nov 21 2020, 11:47 AM

That's phenomenal! Thanks for posting this Mark.

Posted by: raynekat Nov 22 2020, 05:25 PM

Yes, super info on getting parts cleaned up and looking great again.

Posted by: mepstein Nov 22 2020, 08:10 PM

Brent’s carbs. I had to go easy because I didn’t want to strip off the plating on the hardware and fittings. Still, it looks better than what we started with and I was happy I could help out Brent. A little payback for such an entertaining and enjoyable build thread.

*I don’t do this for hire and since I no longer work at the shop, I’m not able to sneak in other peoples parts. Sorry.
The good thing is that there are more and more people offering this surface.


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Posted by: MM1 Nov 22 2020, 10:03 PM

Beautiful Moto Morini! @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825 - please send a video of it running, and pics of the completed resto if you can . . .

Posted by: mepstein Nov 22 2020, 10:28 PM

Restoration on the Morini riders club. http://www.morini-riders-club.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4101&hilit=Early

There are a lot more pics and details on my builders site - Antietam classic cycle Facebook.
After seeing my vapor blasted parts, my engine builder has been using it on a lot of his builds.

Posted by: bbrock Nov 22 2020, 10:54 PM

Can't tell you how grateful I am that you brought my carbs back to beautiful. I still have to stop and stare at them in admiration at least once a week.