Anyone know of a sandblaster?

DanDurusky · **Joined:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:31 pm **Posts:** 686

I need to have the paint stripped off an old bicycle frame. Any suggestions?

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Dan - I have one of these

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=40925

Uses play sand. You're welcome to use it. I might need it once this weekend though. I stripped the paint off a rollbar with no problems. Heck, bring a bag of play sand over to my house this weekend and I'll help you set up and use it.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:04 pm

I have the same unit and like it. It should make short work of a bike frame.

I will say that you should not use play sand for media blasting due to the free silica content (i.e. don't breath the dust). You can use coal slag (sold under brand names like Black Beauty, Black Diamond, etc.) found at places like Northern Tools for just a few dollars more than play sand.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/ ... _200022824

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Crap, I JUST came back from Northern!!! Thanks for the info Richard, good find. Maybe I'll go back tomorrow.

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:20 am

If you plan on sand blasting for a year or so by all means get a different media but small jobs such as Dan has described gives you no more ingestion of free silica than a windy day at the beach. Probably less.
Here's some corroboration:
Silicosis is caused by the prolonged inhalation of excessive fine particles of dust which contain free silica. This fine dust

penetrates deep into the lungs where it sets up a reaction with the tissues of the lung resulting, by slow stages, in their

destruction. As a consequence the efficiency of an affected person's lung becomes progressively impaired.

The onset of the disease is usually slow and begins only after the workman has been exposed to silica dust for some years (commonly 15 years but may be from 3 to 40 years). The first and most important symptom of which the worker may complain is

shortness of breath following exertion. As the disease progresses so the breathlessness becomes worse and may eventually be present even when the worker is at rest. A dry cough is usually evident and gradually becomes more frequent.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:50 am

I understand what you are saying Bernie, but the problem is that there a lot of things that are dangerous and many of those are probably not very dangerous in moderation. But many of those are also easily avoided. 50lb of play sand is around $5. 50lb of coal slag is around $7. And not only is the coal slag safer it actually works better.

Many people don't know what is dangerous and what is not. So it's good to be informed. Things like a chain saw are pretty obviously dangerous if not used correctly. But other things are not so obvious. Does everyone here know about "zinc fever"? This is the zinc fumes from welding zinc plated material or burning zinc off metal in an oven or via a torch? Limited exposure is not deadly, but then again, if you over do it just once it can kill you. How about welding on metal that has wet chlorinated solvents on it (i.e. brake cleaner that is great to clean oils off metal prior to welding). Does everyone know that the UV light from the arc converts this to phosgene gas fumes? Maybe that is one reason I used non-chloronated brake cleaner at home.

Basically, why take the risk with stuff that is easily preventable? I would hate for someone to read this, go by the HF blaster, buy a bunch of play sand from Lowes and then spend the next six months doing a lot of hobby media blasting, have a pre-existing lung condition and then when they have problems at some point in the future wish that someone had told them to not use the sand? Or better yet to not have someone tell them it was OK to use the sand.

I will bet that the play sand has labels that say "not for use for media blasting" and I know that he HF blaster instructions specifically say to not use it.

Sorry for giving you a hard time about this, but short cuts on safety (especailly when doing it right is no harder than doing it wrong) drives me up the wall. We are all still friends right?

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Dan and I will give a first-hand report about how the coal slag works, he's on his way over with it.

Richard, I agree w/ your comments, and I wish that there was a list of "Top 100 Slightly Dangerous But Not Obvious Things That a Hobbyist Mechanic / Fabricator Should Avoid to Ansure a Long and Healthy Life". Maybe you should start that with the 3 or 4 comments from above.

Here's one I'd add -- thanks to Dick Rasmussen for pointing it out -- I have GFCI outlets all over my garage, but my drop light, which is the light most likely to be sitting in a puddle of water, is connected to the non-GFCI overhead light outllets. Easy mistake that I have on my list to correct soon!

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 3:34 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

Dan and I will give a first-hand report about how the coal slag works, he's on his way over with it.

One tip I can give is that while they use screens to determine the grit size for that stuff, you will find a number of chunks large enough to clog your nozzle. If you have something to screen (Northern also sells a screen for this) out the larger chunks prior to putting them into the pressure pot that will help reduce clogs.

You can re-use the slag and I have found that after it's first through through, that either I find and dispose of the chunks the cause clogs or that they break into smaller peices and no longer cause clogs. Either way it seems to not clog after going through once.

George Bright · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:01 pm

If you need to take off lots of paint etc. Here is the trick. It hooks to your pressure washer and blasts with a stream of water and abrasive.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_8520_8520

It is about 10 times faster than a regular sand blaster and also uses sand about 10 times faster too.

It also makes a large pile of wet sand in a hurry too.

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:49 pm

Richard, no offense taken. Silicosis is far removed from Zinc poisoning or phosgene gas ( burning the freon in your A/C will also create phosgene gas) or non GFI drop lights. those things are hazards whose effect are More immediate. Sand blasting has been done for years by hobbists both in autos and even more in boating. I've never known anyone who had contracted this disease or have even heard of someone that contracted it from the hobby used of sand blasting equipment. Its akin to saying you'll get black lung if you have a coal stove.
But if there's any worries about this in anyones mind by all means use an alternative media. I wonder how much heavy metal is in coal slag.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:04 pm

I think the heavy metal question is a good one. The MSDS doesn't mention any that I can find, but there probably is some...

http://www.ati-blackdiamond.com/new/ima ... 4B5222.pdf

I don't think that many people here in the US get silicosis these days due to the fact that on the professional level OSHO has pretty much killed the use of silica sand as blasting media and that hobbiest either have someone tell them to not use it, or they don't do it enough to cause immediate health issues. A quick Google search on "silicosis" will show lots of hits on various forums in which someone says something like "I want to start sand blasting". Usually someone will quickly say "don't use silica sand".

It is still a problem in overseas mining. Apparently the newest cause of silicosis is the use of sand blasting to destress blue jeans to get that "worn" look on the front. This apparently can happen in overseas factories. I think they are using silica sand with regular cheap face masks (which are nearly worthless for this type of thing).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqzWdowzuAQ

DanDurusky · **Joined:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:31 pm **Posts:** 686

It worked pretty darn awesome. I had the frame down to bare metal in about... 40min maybe? I ended up using a whole 50lb bag, but i'm not sure that i had the ratios fully optimized. We used the finer of the two choices (20/40 and 30/60) and it still attacked well. It did leave the metal surface a little rouch, but 4 minutes w/ some 180grit sandpaper and it was smooth and nice.

In short, sand blasting ruuuuuuuuuuleeeeeeees. I'd still be in the front yard killing grass, fish in the rivers, and my skin w/ a chemical stripper trying to get the same result. Thanks, Mike!

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