[Shop-talk] Blasting media

[Karl Vacek]

The package says #8 Glass Beads.  Under a magnifying glass, there are 
certainly some beads in there, and lots of fines - of course, I happen to 
have grabbed a HF magniflying glass too.

I'd guess it's maybe 20% beads - sort of what I'd expect to see after lots 
of blasting.  Or maybe what you might expect from fresh HF glass beads  :-(

Glass beads are what I've almost always used in the past, except before I 
knew better than to use 100-grit silica sand (and that was open blasting). 
What do you use for rust and paint ?  Aluminum oxide ?  Black Beauty slag ?

Karl




> That sounds like you got their "ground glass" media, instead of the "glass
> bead" media.  I have their "glass bead", and it is recognizably balls of
> glass under a magnifying lens.
>
> I got it to use on soft aluminum (carbs & brake cylinders), for which it
> works quite well IMO. But it is frustratingly slow at removing iron rust, 
> or
> healthy paint.
>
> Haven't tried it myself yet, but I would think you could do a pretty good
> job of cleaning up with just a regular air gun.  With my table-top 
> cabinet,
> you have to upend it to dump out the media anyway, so it's bound to make a
> mess.
>
> But if it's something really critical, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to
> sacrifice some of the new media as a 'flush'.