After finishing up my first car I decided to take on a conversion project. With a passion for the cars I thought it would be best to invest in the proper equipment first. I bought a small lincoln MIG last summer. Now I am thinking a bigger 60 gallon, 6hp compressor and air tools as well as a sandblaster. There is a good deal on the local classified for a sand blasting cabinet like so for $150. I have seen quite a few of these here and there at peoples houses but everyone I have talked to never used it or hooked it up. I was wondering what peoples thoughts were on it? Are they efficient and worth the money? Can they use different media in these?




Thanks,

Clow

I bought a brand new one from harbor freight about that size for $200 on sale. I do use it quite a bit. I welded casters on the legs so I could get it outside. I'm glad I have it. The compressor I have does use a bit of electricity, but you can get in your car and waste time, gas and more money paying some one else. I have only used glass. I think with the same tips you can do sand. You could probably put whatever media you want in it.

Casters is a good idea. From what I hear glass is the way to go? Does it recycle the glass pretty good or is there much waste?

Clow

Glass is great for aluminum and pretty good for steel that is not heavily pitted with rust. You will loose some glass, but for the most part it lasts a while. You'll want to use a shop vac to suck out dust so you can see. You'll loose some glass here too. Hook your shop vac to the side port. Remove the vent in the rear so air can come in other wise you'll suck the gloves into the cabinet and will have to waste time putting it back together. This never happened to me but some other dope. The bottom of my cabinet has a dump/release to remove media. I put a 5 gallon bucket underneath to change it out. I suppose you go back and forth between glass/sand/whatever pretty easy.

i use mine all the time. i made it out of an old 55 gal. drum. i also made it a pressure feed so i dont have to knock it around or bang on it to get the media to come out. its name is frank (frankenblaster).

That its badass. I have seen a few home made ones and that seams like another option. I take it you bought the gloves and the gun for it?


Edit: I just noticed you build it on top of an open type sandblaster correct?

Clow

I bought one at Harbor F a few weeks ago and they're down to $99 w/ gun and 4 tips. Before that I've used Rubber Maid trash cans and cardboard boxes. Best thing since pockets on a shirt.

I saw a pic that someone posted awhile back that they made as a wood cabinet.
I liked the size of it, as I want to be able to get the front A arms into it or possibly a door and have room to work. I've got an infrared oven at work that i'll look to powdercoat with.

yep, i bought the special sand blasting gloves and gun at a good old school hardware store called mcfadendales. they may have a web sit. its sitting on top of an old compressor tank. it still has the old wheels on it so its easy to move around. the compressor tank is part of the pressure feed system. the tank is about half full of media. the tank is pressureised and the media is fed from the bottom of the tank. so i have a constant flow of media. when the tank is empty, i unscrew the top of the tank, and bottom of the 55 gal drum and the media falls back into the tank. i have a cooking screen in the media flow to sift out the crap. you can just see the screen between the tank and drum. works awesome....

i can take more pictures if you like....

This Harbour Freight store seams like its god in the States for cheaper tools. We don't get that in Canada. We get Princess Auto but not the same prices. How long would you get out of a tip?




Well I have limited access to a small portable for larger parts and areas of my car.

An oven is the next idea!


Clow

I use a harbor freight pressure pot outside. Premium playground sand from Lowes (@3.50$/50lbs.) Works pretty well, need to screen the sand with a window screen. The clay soil needs the sand so no clean up

I have that one, it is from Princess Auto, it works OK.
Price is the same you'll pay at PA when they are on sale.
A cheap 60 gallon, 6hp compressor may have trouble keeping up to it.

Bad, I didn't like the gun so I use the one off my old sandy jet blaster.
The air connector sticks out the front and you'll bust your nuts on it one day.
It has no light, switch is useless unless you buy the PA light kit which sucks.
Seems to fog (blast) the plastic film glass protectors fast.
The bottom trap leaks, keep a bucket under it.


Good is the price and it's better than nothing.

Hmm, I figured the compressor would have no problem. I don't mind stopping every now and then as long as its not every 10 minutes. What would you be running to it for air?

You are right, I was going with its better than nothing. I know its not a brand name industrial one. Its just to help with a hobby (addiction)

I use the heck out of mine...

I'd buy the 80 gallon and the Chinese heads suck compared to the old US/canada made heads.
That said for hobby it would be good enough

If you don't mind, I would love to see more pics of this. I have a couple extra 55 gallon drums sitting around from my Mercedes Grease-al filling station... would love to make use of 'em in another practical manner. What would you have done differently, if anything?

If you wanted to post more pictures in here mrbubblehead it would be great!


What are people using for compressors to keep up? What psi and if you have an idea of CFM?


Clow

Not sure about the dimensions of the one you are looking at, but buy one large enough for rims, engine tin, etc. I bought one on ebay years ago, and it is too small. I use it for whatever I can fit into it, but I sure wish it was larger. At some point, I will probably fix it by cutting it in half horizontally and adding in a few inches of wall height. I will also modify it so that it drains efficiently into a receptacle that I can swap out quickly and can also be used as the source. I would look for that feature as well if I were you.

I also agree with the above about hooking up the shop vac. If you don't have negative pressure, visibility becomes an issue very quickly.

The blue one has no problem draining back, if it does you're low on media.

Click to view attachment

I built this one about six years ago out of 3/4"particle board and 2x4's , Granger goves and HF gun. I use glass and aluminim ox. with a 5hp , 30gal compressor. It works , but a bigger compressor would be nice. The cabinet is 2x2x4.

And it gets hot enough to cook on top of it too! That is certainly an added bonus

This cabinet the inside is 34"W X 22"D X 15/22"H
The door is >22"W X 10/17"H

It will do a wheel but it is cramped.

Well thats not a bad size. A rim would be max that I would want to do.
I mean, bigger sand blaster would mean bigger oven later on which could lead to a legit shop rather than a house garage...
Clow

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment


jsconst built a very nice, large blast cabinet.

I just finished a powder coating oven made from an old incubator.
Not sure why I got two pics

This is the one I built, 48" x 24" 32" height. Wanted to be able to fit larger items than the store bought ones offered, plus mine was about $100 in materials.
Great to have though, you won't regret getting one.

Click to view attachment


Jeff

I used to have the one you are looking at but it took up a lot of space and I couldn't move it around.

This time I picked up two HF bargains - their bench top blaster and their tool cart, and married them together.








The only drawback is that it is not tremendously large inside, but I use my buddy's blaster for the big stuff.

Think Bigger rather than minimum acceptable, than you can run power tools also. The price dif overtime is small.

You really need a 240V compressor with a large tank or you will be very frustrated, quickly.

Good blasting takes lots of air flowing at 60-90 psi. Sometimes lower PSI works better, especially with glass media. 90 psi turns the media into dust quickly.

You need dryers in your air lines because drops of moisture cause the media to clump and quickly clog up your gun. This is a big problem in humid climates maybe not so much up north.

McMark posted about a high quality gun he bought that saved a lot of time, can't remember the brand. The cheap guns can take a lot of fiddling to get good constant flow.

When your blaster is working right, it is like magic.

John

A good trap will work here, but you also need a regulator. I run two traps and when I paint I put one of those disposable water separators on the gun.

Cheap hobby, eh!

This Harbour Freight store seams like its god in the States for cheaper tools. We don't get that in Canada. We get Princess Auto but not the same prices. How long would you get out of a tip?

About 4-6 hr's. with sand. It mainly depends upon the media that is used.

I bought both the harbor freight blast cabinet and their 40lb soda blaster. I drilled a hole in the cabinet and put a grommet to run the soda line. Gives me the best of both worlds. I can run heavier media in the cabinet itself with that gun, or switch to the soda for finer stuff or where I don't need to be as agressive. And do it at all hours of the day.

I've never done any sandblasting, have only seen it done at a cemetary while I was visiting my grandmother ... and the guy doing it had no cabinet. I am wondering about the material that gets blasted, it mixes with the sand/media? And then what, becomes part of the blasting agent to be reused? Or the sand/media gets used only once? Does that substance get broken down small enough to go through the gun if it does get reused?

Your Harbor Freight blast cabinet and the Princess Auto cabinet are the exact same cabinets, only the colour and stickers are different.