Having a blast....soda, that is, soda blasting recommendations Options

[porbmw]

So
I would like to strip body of car down...
Have taken a prior car to the shop, to use walnut shells
Would like to do this on my own
I DO NOT have a large compressor...most I have is the portable 110volt that I can carry around to do home construction repairs etc

a)Will "that size(sorry, don't know how many gallons off hand, bigger than a breadbox, I'd guess 5 gallons?) do the job..I appreciate that the smaller the compressor, the longer the job takes

b)where would I buy the soda attachments...and what kind

Duh...pretty vague/uneducated/uninformed question...
Thx
Paul

[bbrock]

I'm about 2/3 of the way through DIY blasting my fully stripped, on a rotisserie chassis and far enough along I can make some pretty good estimates of time and cost to complete the project. On my project, I replace the full floor, both outer longs, right inner wheel house, both lock pillars and sail panels which reduced the surface area to blast, BUT this also includes blasting inside the center tunnel, longs, sail panels, and other internal members as they became available to blast and primer. Also, I will chemical or mechanically strip the outer skins of fenders, quarters, trunk lids, and doors as those are pretty easy to do. I may change my mind if I have media left but that's the plan at the moment. So here's where it looks like it will pencil out.

Media - $213 This includes 9 50# bags of crushed glass and 3 50# bags of coal slag. Crushed glass is $21/bag at my local lumber yard; coal slag is $8/bag but nearest source is 150 miles away. Both leave a really nice finish that is comparable to DA with 80 grit so nice tooth for spraying primer. Both can be recycled which I am doing to save substantially on media cost but the coal slag shatters more in use so can't be recycled as many times. It also seems more dusty.

Blaster - HF 40# unit. $80 with coupon. I would have bought this anyway as it is great for small jobs. It is undersized for large jobs like a whole chassis but it just becomes the old "how do you eat an elephant (or whale)" problem.

Compressor - 60 gal. 14.6 cfm@40 lbs. I paid about $400 for it but for other things than blasting. I don't count this toward the cost of blasting but it is a necessary item.

Hood - Let's call it $55 because I bought a POS at HF that was worthless before buying a barely adequate one for $35. Doing it over, I'd probably budget $100 for a hood.

Dust masks - $20

Deadman valve and nozzles - $25 Deadman is optional but sure helps. I could have gotten through the project with the nozzles that cam with the blaster had they not fallen on the shop floor and gotten stepped on.

The grand total will be about $400 which is a substantial savings in coin over hiring the job out. I'm told a local shop will do a delivered rotisserie chassis for about $800 so that's $400 to put elsewhere in the project. Of course if I didn't have a compressor, that cost would blow the savings. I'm paying the difference in time, sweat, and mess. Rough estimate is about 20 hours spent blasting or recycling media and those are hot, dusty hours. Also note that soda blasting would be a non starter because of media costs. A quick check turns up $40/50# bag and you can't reuse soda. Figure 20 bags which would total $800 which already would put me over what the local pros would charge.

So yes, you can save $ DIY blasting but you will pay for it in other ways. For me, saving those greenbacks is a priority and I'm willing to take whatever time is needed to get the job done with least expense. It's about the journey. But if there was one part of this project I would splurge and "pay the guy" to do, blasting would be it.