My Latest Shop Toy, Gonna have a blast with this one.

One of the local hardware box stores had my latest addition to my Maker's equipment on sale for a price I couldn't resist.
A complete benchtop sandblasting cabinet, with all equipment, a built in fluorescent light, & a selection of spare consumable parts, & a supply of glass blasting beads. All for $150.
I'd have a hard time building one for that price.
All I add is a source of compressed air & 115V receptacle for the light. Even comes with 3 spare stick-on plastic cover sheets for the vision area of the door.




I've been thinking about building one of these for quite some time now. They are extremely handy to have, as sandblasting cleans right down to the surface of metal objects, & the finish it leaves is ideal for maximum paint adhesion. Excellent for welding too, & the blast can be used to strip galvanizing & chromate off before welding.




It's not the biggest I've ever used, but it's more than big enough for most of my needs. I've got an older gun & set of gloves for the big stuff.
Now I have to build a stand & vacuum system with outside venting for it.

Too bad you're not closer, I'd give ya a half ton of blasting sand for it.

No shortage of sand around here...I live on an island.

I'm actually considering getting several pounds of silicon carbide or aluminum oxide abrasive for it. It's quite a bit more money, but it stays sharp much longer than sand does & produces a lot less dust. No worries about silicosis, either.

After I quit sandlbasting/painting, most of the leftover sand (14-1600 lbs?) wound up in the back corner of a small storage building to free up floor space in the shop.

That was several years ago. Now the storage building (wooden floor, set on cement blocks) is doing a lopsided wheelie as the block under that corner slowly sinks into the ground.

Btw, river/beach sand isn't all that great for blasting because it's usually worn down a good bit.

For a closed system, aluminium oxide is cats ass. I used to go use the blasting rig at a place my old man used to work... cut through rust, paint, etc like butter.

Yeah, abrasive is the way to go with closed systems. If I use sand, it will be silica sand with sharp corners.
Every machine shop I've ever worked in had a blast cabinet & I've been wanting one here for quite some time.
I should have it all set up within a week or so. I'm thinking about modifying the collection hopper for better sand pickup. This one simply lets sand collect in a triangular trough & picks it up through a tube laying on the bottom.
The best setups have funnel shaped hoppers with the sand pickup right at the bottom, so sand naturally flows into the suction hose. I want this one to be like that, too. I hate having to mess around with poor sand flows.

I prefer bead blast... yes, sand blast is aggressive enough to cut through *anything*, including the worst scale and slag you can make in the course of welding/melting things. But it's just so aggressive... I find bead blast rather relaxing instead.

Tim

What kind of beads? There are several types in use, including plastic beads that are used with compound to polish things.
The abrasive stream is also great for drilling odd shaped holes in glass.

Hmm, good point, you can do all sorts of crazy things with beads, also other soft media like walnut shell, etc.

The machine at work is plain old glass bead, it puts a nice dull / eggshell finish on metal, either for taking off oxides after heating, or after sand blasting slag off from brazing / welding.

Tim

Yeah, glass beads are commonly used when the more aggressive action of an actual abrasive isn't necessary. I hope that machine at your work has a good outside ventilation system or HEPA filtration, because the dust from glass beads is deadly. It can cause silicosis quite quickly.
This includes the residue you blow off of the work when it comes out of the cabinet.

I don't plan on using my cabinet until I have a good outside exhaust, negative pressure ventilation system installed on it.
The only complaint I have with it is the hose they give you to go from gun to cabinet fitting. That crap is so stiff it's like it's made of Viagra.
Needless to say, I am planning to use different hoses when I put everything together.

don't forget the grounding (no has mentioned this as far as i know) .
ungrounded work/hoses/tips can sure build up a charge .

there was a blaster in one area that made me cringe every time i had to use it (used for cleaning up fair sized steel stuff) .
the thing would build up a charge that just about set me back on my heels .
i never could talk the owner into fixing the situation .

Far as I know, our units are sufficiently ventilated and sealed (and grounded!). They don't kick up any dust outside the unit, there's a fan inside to keep the dust down, and I've never had anything to shake off the work (well, that's not true, sometimes a little gets stuck inside of the copper tubing when cleaning off a coil, but other than that). We're a pretty safe company (at least electrically) so I have reason to be cautiously optimistic about our equipment.

Story about that.. some of our guys (like the manager in charge of service and safety) were at the NEC safety convention, or some event like that... The official safety guys were explaining rules and regulations to other people, but a lot of the time apparently they were just like, "hey go talk to these guys over here, they know it better than we do", referring to us of course. Pretty awesome

Tim

Good point...gotta remember the grounding! Now that it's mentioned, I remember being poked a few times through the gloves of ones I've used.

rule of thumb : never take a leak while holding the wand of a working sandblaster .

Especially if you're a woman.