Re: Wire Wheel or Sand Blast

[gene bender]

You need at least 60 cfm and 75lbs pressure to do much sand blasting. Your small compressor just doesent have much psi and cfm for doing much blasting. Now you can get a small one that will operate off your compressor but it will take forever and likely burn up the electric motor. I have a small one but only use it for little parts.

 

[Al L. in Wisc.]

Just in case you haven't seen the Antique Tractor Paint and Bodywork discussion board on Yesterday's Tractors, the link is below. Good luck with your project(s).
poke here: Paint & Bodywork discussion forum

 

[Lou from Wi.]

Here's what we use for our projects,we have a 6 1/2 hp 80 gallon compressor 220v, it works for us with no problem. For saving the blasting media we use a old truck bed liner and re sift the media over and over again. Save a little money. Link below is the unit we have and use.Hope this helps.
LOU & VICTOR
link here

 

[GordoSD]

jUST FORGET ABOUT DOING ANYTHING LARGER THAN A front rheel at home. Find a pro blaster and take the tin, rear rims, rear centers, front pedestal to him. Then hurry home and get the epoxy primer on them.

Gordo

 

[sflem849]

(quoted from post at 16:27:18 02/28/11) jUST FORGET ABOUT DOING ANYTHING LARGER THAN A front rheel at home. Find a pro blaster and take the tin, rear rims, rear centers, front pedestal to him. Then hurry home and get the epoxy primer on them.

Gordo

What if I have a tow behind, engine driven blaster? 4 cyl Hercules power plant with a rotary vein compressor. The literature says it puts out 100 cfm @ 125 psi.

 

[mkirsch]

That'll work.

 

[sflem849]

(quoted from post at 16:53:39 02/28/11) That'll work.

Wardner told me it was still a little small...but this is from the man with a sandblaster that is attatched to a semi chassis and used scavanged beach sand as media.
I'm not sure how big I should go. I am ok on cfm, but I am under psi for modern standards. A lot of the bigger compressors have like 150 psi rec IIRC. I haven't looked in a month or so, I don't want to spend the money now anyhow.

 

[CNKS]

That is the same setup that I have, size of compressor and blaster both. It is rather slow and uses a lot of sand. My compressor does not have a 100% duty cycle, but since most of my time is screening the sand while filling the blaster it has time to cool off. A lot slower than the pros, but I don't have to move the equipment and I can do it when I want to. Nearest pro blaster is 30 miles away. As far as priming as soon as it is blasted, I have no need for that. I can let stuff sit inside for months with no rust.

 

[Farmallhal]

I'm with Gordo - when we restored my Super C we took all the big pieces including the front and rear rims, wheel weights and all the sheet metal pieces to a commercial sandblast operator and got a wonderful job for around $100 total and in less then an hour. Unless you know what you are doing you can quickly distort sheet metal with blasting. For smaller stuff we used sand from a local creek which is very fine and very irregular in shape. It cleans better then anything we can obtain locally from suppliers of blasting media. We dry it before using and collect it during the blasting process and re-screen it and use it over several times until we need to add more. As far as size of compressor and amount of air required I'm in the dark as that all belongs to my cousin who has the blast unit powered by a gas engine, Hal.

 

[Tom Fleming]

Ditto on big pieces vs small ones. I have a small blast cabinet and a 100# blast pot. I use them on small pieces, but take big 'uns to a local sandblast shop.

I use wire wheel alot for large, fairly unobstructed pieces.......but you can't beat sandblasting for "nooks and crannies".................