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.

[Katmanken]

I'm not keen on blasting.

Why?? Rust forms a conical pit in the metal which means the sand grain pentrates the rust cell to a depth where the sand grain gets stopped by the conical walls of the good metal and leaves a conical rust pocket deep in the metal.

If you use an electrical derusting process that some dippers use, the conical shape of the clean rust pits can be seen.

In Cinci, American Metal Refinishing has the tanks and electrical dip processes to do a trunk lid or fender for about $60 or a whole car for about $1k.

Ditto on the clogs with sandblasting but nobody mentioned the pure unadulturated fun of flying sand that lodges in yer ears, hair, eyes, clothes, mouth, etc (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)