[aminga]

Is there a secret to getting black beauty to flow through a pressure blaster. I have the largest tip in my blaster (Don't have the tip handy near the computer) but I either problems with the stuff briding in the tip and stopping up or bridging in the media valve and the line between getting it to flow through the valve and flowing through the nozzle is pretty darn fine.

[lumberjacknooj]

Do you have an air dryer or filter on your compressor set up? Moisture in the lines would be my first guess, as to why it's clotting on you.

Black Beauty is as bad as sand, if not worse- as far as free silica goes. SO, be sure to protect yourself with the proper respirator!!

Nooj

[oldred]

Originally Posted by lumberjacknooj

Black Beauty is as bad as sand, if not worse- as far as free silica goes. Nooj

Not sure where you got your info but Black Beauty is no where near as bad as regular sand, actually Black Beauty is one of the safer alternatives to silica sand and contains very little silica (usually less than 1%) or none at all. No blast media is completely safe but some, such as Black Beauty, are much safer than sand.

[lumberjacknooj]

Checkout this link from this post.

That's where I got my info about the health hazards of black beauty

Aminga, have you got things working better yet?

Nooj

[Ricoch3T]

i use it all the time... just make sure you use the fine (i think its fine) sand... The guy I buy it from had it in 4 containers, something like ultra fine, fine, medium fine, and something else
whatever the name of it is is get the second one from the finest they have. Works for me everytime and I use it for everything!

[Jon]

Thanks for the link lumberjacknooj. Added it to our wiki article on Media blasting.

This may also be interesting to you: Typical physical characteristics of abrasives.

[cranky1]

Test Materials
Coal slag.
"Black Beauty®" coal slag was purchased from Reed Minerals (Highland, IN). The manufacturer reports that in a typical analysis, the most abundant compounds are silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, ferric oxide, calcium oxide, potassium oxide, magnesium oxide, and titanium dioxide, which respectively account for 47.2%, 21.39%, 19.23%, 6.80%, 1.60%, 1.47%, and 1.01% of the material (Reed Minerals, 1992). The typical free-silica content is stated to be less than 0.1% (Reed Minerals, 1992).

[eloc431962]

When i was sandblasting all the time, The black beauty was good stuff but it would clog from time to time, And i always wore a full head gear with air pumping into the mask/ hood to breath better. Not very wise IMO not to use a full head gear equiped with air. JMO. If you ever get that stuff in your eye well you won't forget it . I had a piece slip throuhg my hood got my eye had to go to the hospital to get it removed it just kept working and digging in. And you do need a dryer with this media. Even with a dryer i would have to choke it down ever now and then to get it to flow. JMO. Cole

[oldred]

Originally Posted by lumberjacknooj

Checkout this link from this post.

That's where I got my info about the health hazards of black beauty



Nooj

Evidently you misunderstood what was said in that link, it plainly says that Black Beauty has 1% or less of free silica. As I said no media is "Safe" but Black Beauty is one of the safer ones and has little to no free silica.

I think Cranky posted the text from the link on Black Beauty.

From the link you provided

[The typical free-silica content is stated to be less than 0.1% (Reed Minerals, 1992).]

[aminga]

So I got what I need too blasted so I'm done for now. What I have isn't "black beauty" it's "black something else" sold at Tractor supply and it doesn't flow as well as true black beauty. Maybe it is the grain size. It's sold as fine but marked as 20/40 and that doesn't seem very fine to me. The Fine black beauty does flow better but it still stops the nozzle on.

On my pressure blaster I have the media valved cracked about 1/3 the way open and the air bypass full open.

[lumberjacknooj]

Well, glad ya got your stuff done. Perhaps a little fine tuning will have it flowing better for you next time.

OLDRED- I stand corrected. I was mistaken about the free silica content of the coal slag. Thanks for pointing that out cranky1.

In terms of health affects, you're right- no blasting agents are "safe". I wouldn't consider black beauty a safer alternative though.
As stated in the report I linked to:
"Coal slag is the most frequently used substitute for sand in abrasive blasting (Paumanok Publications, Inc., 1992), and it was more inflammatory and caused greater cell damage than blasting sand." Just FYI.

Thanks for the other link, Jon.

Nooj

[Jon]

One of the points I saw in that study is that silicosis is only one of the hazards of media blasting. Many blasting media proudly advertise their low silica content, while not giving enough attention to the fact that media blasting your lungs, no matter the media, is not safe. This has been a consistent theme of the pros on this forum.

Also, it made me curious about the possibilities of iron oxides as blasting media.

[robs ss]

Originally Posted by eloc431962

When i was sandblasting all the time, The black beauty was good stuff but it would clog from time to time, And i always wore a full head gear with air pumping into the mask/ hood to breath better. Not very wise IMO not to use a full head gear equiped with air. JMO. If you ever get that stuff in your eye well you won't forget it . I had a piece slip throuhg my hood got my eye had to go to the hospital to get it removed it just kept working and digging in. And you do need a dryer with this media. Even with a dryer i would have to choke it down ever now and then to get it to flow. JMO. Cole

You don't need a dryer if you run your air lines right. Heres this.

http://www.1969supersport.com/draw1.html

Rob

http://www.1969supersport.com

[Ratdoggy]

Wow that's some setup. I was impressed

[Ratdoggy]

I just looked at his site there's a lot of good ideas in there