Blast cabinet tips and tricks thread

[HumberSS]

51 minutes ago, JR said:

Some guys were asking about a vapor blaster I made so thought I'd share how to make one and the results. 

Its was a bog standard sand blasting cabinet. I'll give a brief rundown on how I did it. Every single idea was stolen straight from YouTube.

 

Basically vapor blasting fires a slury of water and very fine glass beads (must be round beads for a polished finish, not crushed glass) out of a slightly modified nozzle with compressed air. 

It can be used for cleaning all sorts but is exceptional at polishing aluminum. It's non abrasive so can be used on machined surfaces. 

When I assembled the cabinet I used a heap of sealant on all the joins. Worked well, it's water tight.

 

It's just your standard garden variety submersible pump.

I got the pump from a random tool shop nearby (just googled the cheapest) it was about $60-$70 from memory. 

The outlet from the pump needs a tee. One of the tees needs to point back into the bucket. This is to make a slury, mixing the glass bead and water.

The other part of the tee goes to the gun.

I got my gun from NZVBS. The dude was really helpful matching gun to my needs.

Then you just need a foot pedal to operate the air, a window wiper is a good add on and away you go. 

They say about 5 parts to 1 of water to glass bead. It's closed loop, so recycles the slury. To clean the mixture just carefully pour the dirty water out and the glass beads stay at the bottom of the bucket.

A+, would trade again.

Does it take paint off? 

[JR]

Nah not very efficiently. If you go over a part very very slowly it will. I've found it best to paint strip beforehand. Although really shitty paint it blasts off really quickly.

[tortron]

I got one from supercheap at the last Easter sale.

Comes fully assembled in the box. All the seams are already siliconed up.

The screen is a lower section of glass, with plastic screen on top

The far left screen bolts already have caprive nuts.

 

Things I have done

Siliconed everything again as I already had the tube 

Put rivnuts at all the other screen screw holes

Punched some holes in a biscuit tin and stuck that over the exhaust port

Threw the plastic top screen out as dust almost immediately got inbetween that and the glass and fogged it. Just ran the extra foam seal around the edge to fill.the gap and its way better to see through  even from new.

Attached my big dust extractor via an additional cyclone and bucket. 

 

Seems fine so far tbh, running the toolshed ultra fine garnet. Sucks up the syphon tube without issue, with factory light, single.layer glass, and vac set up its clear enough. More light and some antistick/blower for.the dust that sticks to the inside of the glass would be better

 

120 yr old.cast iron and japanning , and 30 year old Japanese motorcycle rust and paint has cleaned up good. Maybe better with a coarser grit? But gets the job done anyways

[lush]

Has anyone converted their sandblast cabinet to a vapor blaster? 

I have two of these, one is fully operational,  the other needs a new extractor motor , glass , gloves etc.

Bought them as a pair very cheap in an auction.

So why not convert it to a vapor blaster huh?