Sand Blasters, what to do?what to do? Options

[JimmyG]

Hello All,

Trying to get prepared to finish all of the reinforcement work on the body and decided that it would be a good idea to do a little sand blasting to clean things up a bit. I've seen units from $199 - $3000. And visually can't see any difference in them. I've seen blast media from sand to walnut shells to soda. Can somebody that has used these on a car tell me what is the best buy for a poor homeowner that wants to have a unit to use more than once but doesn't want to spend the motherlode. and the best overall media.
Any help would be appreciated. Off to ball practicefor my kids. Be back to look at this in a bit.
Thanks.

[r_towle]

If you are going to sandblast things for many years to come, invest in a pressurized system, NOT a syphon feed.

If you are only planning to do one car, RENT the equipment. You can rent a very large system that would cost thousands...and use it for the weekend.

One other option is to hire it out.
There are many places that will sandblast your car for you...again, its a one shot deal.

Rich

[ericread]

If you are going to sandblast things for many years to come, invest in a pressurized system, NOT a syphon feed.

If you are only planning to do one car, RENT the equipment. You can rent a very large system that would cost thousands...and use it for the weekend.

One other option is to hire it out.
There are many places that will sandblast your car for you...again, its a one shot deal.

Rich

I'm not so sure about soda blasting. I used diet coke on mine and it just made a mess... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Eric

[r_towle]

If you are going to sandblast things for many years to come, invest in a pressurized system, NOT a syphon feed.

If you are only planning to do one car, RENT the equipment. You can rent a very large system that would cost thousands...and use it for the weekend.

One other option is to hire it out.
There are many places that will sandblast your car for you...again, its a one shot deal.

Rich

I'm not so sure about soda blasting. I used diet coke on mine and it just made a mess... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Eric

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Soda blasting benefits.
Its water soluable....so afterwards, just hose off the driveway or wait for the next rain storm and its gone.

Its softer than sand so it wont heat up the larger panels and risk warping them.

it is great stuff

[Richard Casto]

.... softer than sand so it wont heat up the larger panels and risk warping them.

Lots of good info in this thread, but the myth about media blasting warping panels via heat is a pet peeve of mine. You can absolutely deform thin material via media blasting, but it’s not the heat that does it (very little heat is generated in fact), but rather the density of your media, the pressure you are using and your technique.

For example if you used something like coal slag (cheap substitute for silica sand) or aluminum oxide, crank up the pressure beyond 100psi and use a stream perpendicular (90 deg) to the panel, you are doing your best to deform the panel (not to mention eat it away). Think of it as thousands of tiny hammers hitting the panel per second. But lower the pressure and use a shallower angle and you will be just fine. Also Soda is about one half to two thirds as dense as coal slag or aluminum oxide, so that also helps a great deal.

Conversely, I am a sure that Soda with high pressure and bad technique can also do damage. Media selection is important, but you also have to know what you are doing. I have zero fear in using coal slag, etc. on metal panels.