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Media Blasting

2K views 17 replies 4 participants last post by  robs ss 
#1 ·
My projects won't fall into the class of hot rods by most of your subscribers but there are many similarities in any restoration project. I have a 1954 KR-175 Messerschmitt and a 1948 Fiat Topolino that I am restoring to "original". Both in need of major metal work, including media blasting. I recently purchased an Eastwood Soda Blaster and can't get it to perform as advertised (or should I say "expected"). So I was interested to see if any of your subscribers have purchased one and if they have good results how did they achieve them.
 
#2 ·
mike.Vincent said:
My projects won't fall into the class of hot rods by most of your subscribers but there are many similarities in any restoration project. I have a 1954 KR-175 Messerschmitt and a 1948 Fiat Topolino that I am restoring to "original". Both in need of major metal work, including media blasting. I recently purchased an Eastwood Soda Blaster and can't get it to perform as advertised (or should I say "expected"). So I was interested to see if any of your subscribers have purchased one and if they have good results how did they achieve them.
..sound like interesting projects. You might be surprised at the variety of things that folks on this site get into. Welcome aboard.
As far as your troubles with blasting....give us a better idea of what's happening. Is it just not working as fast as you hoped (maybe just a question of expectations)? Does it emit media erraticallly (maybe a problem with air supply OR media condition)? Or, what else is the complaint? Are you blasting large panels (the whole car, in othre words) or are you just blasting cracks, crevices and hard to get at areas?
With a little more background, I'll bet you'll get some help.
Good luck and welcome.
 
#4 ·
Soda Blaster

My first attempt with Soda was marginal at best. I may of had some moisture contributing to my problem since the compressor was in a garage (about 50 deg) and the blaster was outside in the driveway (about 30 deg). The media flow was intermittent at best and I had to "burb" it several times. I had an assistant shake the blaster while I controlled the gun and it helped some. Even so, it wouldn't remove the paint from my snomobile. I decided to try glass beads and traded out the soda retrofit kit back to the standard media kit. I fooled with it for about 40 minutes and out of the entire time I got about 15 seconds of acceptable performance, removing about 3 square inches of paint. However, it is encouraging to here that others have had more success. I appreciate any ideas?
 
#5 ·
mike.Vincent said:
My first attempt with Soda was marginal at best. I may of had some moisture contributing to my problem since the compressor was in a garage (about 50 deg) and the blaster was outside in the driveway (about 30 deg). The media flow was intermittent at best and I had to "burb" it several times. I had an assistant shake the blaster while I controlled the gun and it helped some. Even so, it wouldn't remove the paint from my snomobile. I decided to try glass beads and traded out the soda retrofit kit back to the standard media kit. I fooled with it for about 40 minutes and out of the entire time I got about 15 seconds of acceptable performance, removing about 3 square inches of paint. However, it is encouraging to here that others have had more success. I appreciate any ideas?

A couple of possibilities. In spite of the billing that you can convert an existing blaster you really can't, at least not without completely cleaning the tank of all of the old media. The eastwood kit uses a restricted orifice to limit the flow of soda and coarser media will plug the restrictor. And it is almost impossible to clean the tank of all old media.

Second the purge valve is just a little above the restrictor so that it's possible for a plug of wet soda to form where it can't be purged. First time this happened I took the valve apart to fix it. Then I realized you can just backflush hose with a blow gun.

If you're having to rock the tank back and forth it sounds like the media is low. All of my pressure pot blasters do this.

Once you get the media flow issues solved it will clean. My best results are with the soda valve on the bottom all the way open and adjust the airflow on the back near the regulator Start with it closed and open it a little at a time until it starts to cut. Once you get a place clear you can blast against the edge of the bare metal and it works pretty fast.
 
#6 ·
Soda Blaster

Sounds like excellent advice. I will follow your suggestions and give it another try later this week. I am also making a dust proof (or dust catching) area in my garage to eliminate any extreme temperature/humidity problems that I may have introduced. I will post my results after I give it a try. Thanks again for your time in helping me resolve this frustrating problem!
 
#7 ·
Mike,

The biggest thing is to make sure your compressed air supply is moisture free. I soda blast in Alabama in August and haven't seen a lot of problems humidity. But water in the air supply deadly.

25 ft of copper line between the compressor and water separator should do it.
 
#8 ·
Heres this drawing I made on air lines.

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

Your getting moisture in your media. With the two cars your doing and the amount of time you will be putting in, I would suggest you get a supplied air setup as soon as possible.

When your blasting metal you don't know what type of paint or filler or primer or sealer your blasting. Its all going airborne, so you should use caution on what your breathing.

I won't even rattle can without it on. I use it for grinding, blasting, welding, painting, cleaning, etc. Once you get used to using it, you won't work without it.

Rob

http://www.1969supersport.com
 
#10 · (Edited)
Heres some reading for you Mike. I wrote this up on the chevelle forum a while back.





#4 Oct 9th, 08, 5:36 PM
rubadub
Lifetime Premium Member
Rob Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: two rivers wi.
Posts: 7,517

Re: ? on paint booths

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In the first three pages http://www.1969supersport.com/paintroom.html

You can take outside air directly into the paint booth

Or take inside warm air mixed with outside air into the booth

Or take just warm air from inside into the booth

Or take cooler air conditioned air from inside into the booth

You can also mix your paint by the opening and exit that air into the booth

This is a negative pressure booth, in other words you don't have any fumes inside the garage, only in the paint booth.

Its not a lot of negative pressure, if you leave the little service door open about an inch or two it will draw it shut.

This is a really user friendly setup, your runner or the person mixing the paint outside the booth, will be breathing clean air, right after the initial mixing time.

I use supplied air and I can step out of the booth and take a break and breath clean air in the garage in any kind of weather.

Its all home made with cheap piping, and there isn't a lot of air flow going through the booth, however you will have a lot of fumes while you are spraying, but the person spraying can see what he's doing.

A booth like this doesn't cost a lot of money to build, and it can be all unbolted and stacked up if you want to take it down.

Its cheap, but you can get good paint jobs out of it, with the low flow you will have less dirt.

Anyway

Rob




#5 Oct 9th, 08, 5:47 PM
rubadub
Lifetime Premium Member
Rob Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: two rivers wi.
Posts: 7,517

Re: ? on paint booths

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A little more here, when I paint I turn the heat up to about 78 degrees, warm up everything really good, then spray between 72 and 76 degrees, I haven't had any problems with this set up.

I think the warmer temperatures have quite a bit to do with it. I also leave the heat at 72 degrees overnight.

We have sprayed z-chrome, (sprayable body filler) a lot of epoxy and other paints and primers, a lot of motorcycle sets and a few cars, however when it comes down to the final base clear, on a car anyway, I will bring in a painter that is currently working in the body shop field and paints on a regular basis, which is also good because he brings his own gun, the last one sprayed for around $15 an hour, thats a couple of years ago, so I might have to pay $18 or $20 for one now.

With the price of materials I think its a good way to go.

Rob
__________________
"There are questions to be answered, and answers to be questioned"


Jigs, sandblasting, shop, paintroom, rotisserie, pictures, little bit of everything.
http://www.1969supersport.com






Re: ? on paint booths

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Just in case anybody is reading what I put out, heres how you build it. http://www.chevelles.com/forums/show...ld+paint+booth

Rob
__________________
"There are questions to be answered, and answers to be questioned"


Jigs, sandblasting, shop, paintroom, rotisserie, pictures, little bit of everything.
http://www.1969supersport.com
 
#11 ·
Try this again on how to build a paint booth.


building temporay walls for a booth
Heres some stuff on how to build some take down later paint room walls if you want to. On my site you can see some paint room pictures if you would like to, anyway, this is for the night owls on here, for what its worth.


Start by laying out some 2x4's on the floor, this will be your bottom plate, so were going to start with one wall, you allready have the outside wall of your garage.

Lay them flat where you want your wall in a line, one butted up against the other.

Hilty them down to your garage floor every few feet, good enough so they won't move, don't over do it.

Don't worry about the hilty holes if you decide to take the booth out, if you are, you can mortar the holes shut if your moving out permanently.

If you don't tell anybody about the hilty holes in the floor, most people wouldn't even notice them.

Build your wall panels on the floor, depending on how high your ceiling is, you want a half inch or so space between the top of your wall and the ceiling.

I'll explain why later.

I used 4'x 8' 7/16'' thick aspenite, smooth side facing the inside of the booth.

Cut some 2'' x 4''s and lay them on there side, then lay your 4 x 8 sheet of aspenite over it and glue and screw the panels to the 2'' x 4''s.

Only sheet one side, the studs will be showing on the side outside the booth.

Go to the back wall and stand your first panel up on top of your 2 x 4 plate on the floor.

Pre drill a couple of holes for lag screws to hold your wall section to the floor plate. Lag screw it down, now go the top of your wall section, and you should have about a 1/2'' gap between the top of your wall and the ceiling, it can be close to tight or an inch difference in the gap ,no big deal.

Now locate your stringers or trusses or rafters or whatever, and pre drill your upper wall into the ceiling trusses. two if you can get them in, don't forget to level your wall section before you lag screw it at the top.

Your not going to draw that top wall section to the ceiling, all your doing is putting a couple of lag screws in it to keep it from falling over.

Finish out your wall as long as you want it, mines around 25' long I think.

Now you have the wall in, and you have a gap at the top. Get some 1'' x 4''s or 1'' x 6''s and close off that gap, those are just screwed in also, nothing is nailed, so you can dissasemble all of it.

I layed them up, then put a couple of screws in them to hold them, then took a pencil and marked them, pulled them off and put a little bead of caulk just inside the pencil line, then screwed them down and the caulk squished out, and smoothed it off with my thumb.

Do the same to your bottom plate, also caulk the cracks in between the wall sections.

Then some cheap white latex paint on the inside and it will be water proof so you can hose it down if you want to.

I'm thinking with this, plus the paint room section, you should have a rough idea on how to do it.

I'm guessing, but I think I could dissasemble my paint booth in an hour with an air ratchet and stack it up and put in the back of a pickup.

Rob
 
#16 ·
Last thing for today, I'll be quiet now.

Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: two rivers wi.
Posts: 7,517

Paint Prep

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Dirt, specks, cracks, little boogers in the paint.

This is just one little part of paint prep that might help you out. Theres a lot to it, and there are experts on here that have forgot more then I will ever know, but I showed an old bodyman this and he says it really helped him out. This is my little segment to the ballgame.

I worked in a nuclear power plant for quite a few years, and this is how it works.

Contamination can't be detected by the human eye, that's why they have meters to find it.

Take the dust on top of your television, if you wipe it you will see some dirt on the rag, well in a power plant you have a few places that have contamination, maybe on top of a pipe or valve that has a small leak, you might not even see it but, if you wipe that little bit of dust off from it and check it with a meter you might find contamination, which is radiation in a unwanted area, something like that.

These areas are in a controlled area that the general public cannot get into, and the power plant monitors and cleans them up when they show up.

When you clean something contaminated you decon it, now I'm getting to the point if you're still with me.

When you clean, let's say a surface two feet long by a foot tall, you can sometimes scrub it several times until it's squeaky clean, then take a clean rag and take one wipe down the side, put a meter on it and you still might show contamination.

So you're looking at this and it's spotless yet the meter shows its still got something on it.

If you wipe one time then turn the rag over to a clean part of it and wipe one time the other way, you might have to do this a couple of times, but experience at wiping one way, rather then using the same part of the rag to go the other direction is what works to get rid of contamination you can't see.

So, put a little acryliclean on your fender, take a clean rag and wipe once down the side, turn the rag over so its clean and wipe again, don't go back and forth without turning the rag over.

If this process will clean stuff you can't see with the human eye, then its a pretty sure bet you have it clean.

Also you don't have to put a lot of pressure on the surface when you wipe it.

Hers a tip on cleaning cast iron parts on your chassis using acryliclean.

Spray the part until its moist looking, then take the air hose and blow from one end to the other, like rinsing a wall, one end to the other, not back and forth, usually at least a couple of times.

I use napa 7222 primer and napa 7250 iron block/cast. Just spray them lightly and that way the cast iron will look like cast iron instead of the woodwork in an apartment I used to rent that had twelve coats of paint on the woodwork.

Number 9 wire at a building supply makes excellent hangers for your detail work.

When painting hard to get at areas like inside frame rails, spring pockets, use a siphon type gun like the old standard binks #7, otherwise the hvlp cup will get in the way, I have a bright flash light in one hand when I spray those hidden areas.

I was a little long winded on the radiation/contamination, but anybody that ever tried to explain it usually wound up writing several volumes on it.

Rob

http://www.1969supersport.com
 
#17 ·
Media Blasting...thanks

I appreciate all the suggestions to improve my soda blasting results. I incorporated your ideas to reduce moisture and now the Eastwood soda blaster is working very well. I'm very pleased with the results and albeit a bit pricey it is worth it to me to have the flexibility of blasting what I want when I want.

Thanks for the suggestions and drawings!
 
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