To your first question, I had a HF floor cabinet for many years and, while it
leaked pretty badly until I spent some time siliconing all of the joints, I
loved having it and used it far more than I would ever have thought. (FWIW, I
got rid of it a few years ago because my current garage is a lot smaller and
because I have a friend with a professional set up only 10 minutes away. But,
I still miss having one in my garage!)
One thing I will add re: your third question is something I learned when I had
a car blasted a few years ago. The blasting company told me that duct tape was
great for protecting areas you didnâ??t want blasted but had a tendency to be
very hard to remove following blasting. Their recommendation was to first use
masking tape on the protected areas and then put the duct tape on top of that.
I did that with the VIN tag and it worked perfectly. It may not be necessary
with a home set-up, but I have followed that advice ever since, just to be safe.
Jim
> On Dec 26, 2020, at 3:52 PM, Eric Russell <ejrussell@mebtel.net> wrote:
>
> I built my blasting cabinet based on plans from TP Tools. I later built a
> closed box that latches onto the side for larger/longer items.
>
> Being set up & ready to go at all times means I use it often. It's as simple
> as hooking up the air line and flipping a switch for the light. I also added
> a cyclone separator between the cabinet & my shop vac. This helps keep the
> view from being obscured by the dust cloud and helps the shop vac's filter
> last longer.
>
> Aluminum Oxide is available in various grits and seems to be fairly long
> lasting (but all media eventually breaks down and needs replacement).
> Recycled ground glass (available from TP Tools and likely others) works well
> and seems to have less dust. It might be a good 'all purpose' media. Walnut
> shells is great for fine cleaning - like carburetors. Be sure to clean out
> the cabinet before changing media - especially when going from coarse to
> fine. BTW, be careful using glass beads - when (not if) they are spilled it's
> like walking on icy grease!
>
> An assortment of rubber plugs/corks will protect threaded holes. A layer or
> two of duct tape will protect machined surfaces. Cleaning rusty threaded
> parts is fun - after blasting they'll often turn by hand.
>
> --
> Eric Russell
> Mebane, NC
>
> On 12/26/2020 2:05 PM, Darrell Walker wrote:
>> Iâ??m thinking of using some Christmas money on a bench top blast cabinet.
>> I realize the small size will limit what I can blast, but that is about all
>> the space Iâ??m willing to allocate, and it should handle most of what I
>> would be looking at blasting.
>>
>> So a some questions for the list:
>>
>> 1. For those of you with blast cabinets, do you find yourself using it more
>> than you expected? My first project would be cleaning up some suspension
>> parts (mostly paint removal). I think enough projects come along that it
>> would be worth having one, but I would love to be surprised to find
>> additional uses.
>>
>> 2. What is a good all purpose, reusable media to use? I would mostly be
>> removing paint, and some surface rust.
>>
>> 3. The first parts I would be cleaning have some machined surfaces
>> (threaded holes, tapers, etc). How careful do you need to be to protect
>> those areas? And what if the best way to do that? One of the parts will be
>> a strut tube, which includes the stub axle. Iâ??m thinking that wrapping
>> that area in duct tape might be a good idea.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> -Darrell
>>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Shop-talk@autox.team.net
> Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
> Suggested annual donation $12.96
> Archive: http://www.team.net/pipermail/shop-talk http://autox.team.net/archive
>
> Unsubscribe/Manage:
> http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/1789alpine@gmail.com
>
_______________________________________________
Shop-talk@autox.team.net
Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
Suggested annual donation $12.96
Archive: http://www.team.net/pipermail/shop-talk http://autox.team.net/archive
Unsubscribe/Manage:
http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/mharc@autox.team.net
|