bead blaster experiences

[blusylver]

i purchased the blaster cabnet from harbor freight about a month ago and after a day off assembly and another day of altering i absolutely love it. i know need to find some media that will last longer than 3 hours of use. im using aluminum oxide to remove a good amount of rust.

so car i have completely eliminated the shitty ass lighting system. and installed my own, i also installed a shop vac. everything is ran off of a light switch that i installed onto the original box. I also made a filter system so the media falls through the filter and my pick up line is in the filtered media.

here is a before/after pic of the trailing arms i did, in the pic the top half is done and not the bottom. currently the TA is about 95% complete. the media is now to dull to remove anymore






if anyone has had a good experience with a media that last longer than about 3 hours of use please let me know. thank you

[kronus]

I have the same blaster and it's wonderful for small jobs, but the media in it now has gotten so gross the gun won't even blast it anymore. I think it's a consumable.. aluminum oxide is what I've used as well.

[blusylver]

are you filtering the media? before i made the filter contraption i was having a very hard time keeping the media flowing.

i understand that it is a consumable but 50 bucks to do one TA is a bit much

[blunttech]

I use this stuff called black diamond. I get it locally at a place called Northern tool. It does not appear to degrade,. Ive been using it for years.
Be careful with whatever you use. Get yourself a good respirator , not one of those shitbreathers.
The fine dust is really bad. and a carcinogen

[FredK]

Yeah, Black Diamond is $8 for 50 lbs at Tractor Supply Co. Aluminum oxide is better suited to critical parts that need a particular finish. For something like suspension components, coal slag will be more than sufficient.

It still has silica in it, but it beats the heck out of using play sand. Fine silica can cause silicosis, which can easily kill you.

[blusylver]

is this good for heavy rust removal? im not worried to much about surface finish

[FredK]

Yes, Black Diamond will remove rust really well.

[AndrewBird]

At my last job we used aluminum oxide and in the 2 years I worked there, the sand had never been changed and who knows when it was changed last. You should be able to get a TON of use out of it. Pretty much as long as it's sand, it will work. I would make sure you are getting adequate flow.

[blusylver]

I cant figure out why this stuff just wont take anything off anymore. when I got it he cut through the rust rather quickly, now I cant get it to take anything off.

I checked the flow by watching the feed tube and by watching the amount coming out of the nozzle, everything seemed to be fine. I ended up putting it back in the container and returned it to HF. gotta love their no question asked return policy.

[blusylver]

Got the black Diamond and it works relatively well. It just keeps on jamming in the gun. I took a end mill and put it into a drill and opened up the feed tube supply line a little bit. It seems to have helped but it still gets plugged up every 30 seconds or so. I have 2 water traps in the line. I can't imagine that moisture is causing it to jam.

[blunttech]

I notice high humidity effects flow in mine but it doesnt clog like youre saying I just take my glove and cover the tip and apply air and it will unclog it and works like new again

[Need4Speed1299]

For heavy rust use play sand. It will break down quick but its cheap and course. Otherwise black diamond is the best but expensive and fine.

[ForcedFirebird]

I haven't had an issue with the HF media, but I did a little different setup. Made my own cabinet from plastic-lined MDF...



Also, didn't use a siphon, bought their pressure blaster. Now I filter the media as it is loaded in the pressure tank. While it's a pain to have to fill it, it seems to do a much better job than the previous siphon setup. Now when the media breaks up small and becomes unusable, it tends to go in the vacuum - so, never really have to replace the media, just keep adding new as the supply diminishes.

[ForcedFirebird]

For heavy rust use play sand. It will break down quick but its cheap and course. Otherwise black diamond is the best but expensive and fine.

It also causes Silicosis.

[blusylver]

I notice high humidity effects flow in mine but it doesnt clog like youre saying I just take my glove and cover the tip and apply air and it will unclog it and works like new again

thats what im doing, but i have to do it every 30 seconds or so. i think im going o try a gravity feed system. if that doesnt work then ill stop being cheap and buy the 90 dollar gun.