Dustless paint blasting (1 Viewer)

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Just tossing this out there as another option......If you have a company like Redi-Strip in your area they do a chemical dip that removes all rust, bondo, paint, etc....Only metal remains when you get it back. They told me that it has a film on it to prevent flash rust. That film is removed with water, then you let it dry for a few days before painting. They quoted me about 800-1200 depending on the condition of the item.

 
Just realized OP is my neighbor.. Rust sunshine and standing water not an issue. It will dry before you finish. Just make sure you got a large area and enough time. I still would rather farm it out. The quote you got seems high. Did you try anyone in south tucson?
 
I will ad that at first I was discouraged , was taking a long time, but after about an hour of experimenting, I found that lowering the pressure to just the right amount really increased the Venturi effect. AND very important, I only blast on hot sunny days and the sand had been baking in the sun! This also helps with getting it dry quickly and then it’s an hour of air blasting all the sand out. It then gets primed ASAP. It will flash rust if this is not done. I had no issue with any panel warping ( 67 45 does have thick sheet metal. Here is a corvette frame I did a few weeks ago.View attachment 2526289View attachment 2526290View attachment 2526291View attachment 2526292
Very nice!
From what I have read, water based blasting has less of a tenancy to warp sheet metal panels than either air based sand blasting or conventional sanding.
This is because the water does not let the metal get hot and expand.
 
Just tossing this out there as another option......If you have a company like Redi-Strip in your area they do a chemical dip that removes all rust, bondo, paint, etc....Only metal remains when you get it back. They told me that it has a film on it to prevent flash rust. That film is removed with water, then you let it dry for a few days before painting. They quoted me about 800-1200 depending on the condition of the item.

I looked around and the only paint stripping services listed locally are for wet or dry blasting.
But I will keep chemical stripping in mind.
Thanks!
 
Just realized OP is my neighbor.. Rust sunshine and standing water not an issue. It will dry before you finish. Just make sure you got a large area and enough time. I still would rather farm it out. The quote you got seems high. Did you try anyone in south tucson?
Thanks for the information.
Water dries pretty quickly in Arizona even in the winter so I think I am safe.
Cheers!
 
Please note that "wet blasting" is not the same as dustless blasting. Dustless blasting uses mountains of compressed air and a little bit of water whereas wet blasting uses water pressure to propel the media. I bought one of those wet blasters and have a 3000psi/2.5 gpm pressure washer. After going through one bucket of media I stopped and never used it again. It was a serious mess, and quite frankly didn't strip the rust off very fast. I went back to "dry" blasting, which is also a mess, but I can get the metal very clean and I haven't had any problems with sheet metal warping.
I thought that dry media blasting using air was by definition "dusty".
I looked on line an it appears that all the "dustless" services in my area uses water.
Please let me know how an air based "dustless" system works or send me a link.
Thanks!
 
@Alex Waddell - Sorry, I did a crappy job of explaining "dustless blasting" Yes, it does use water in the mix with the abrasive media, but the mixture is combined with a ALOT of compressed air when shot at the car. I inserted an old link that shows "dustless blasting" at work. Notice at the beginning of the video the configuration of the trailer that pulls up to the Impala. Most of the trailer is a diesel powered air compressor, which can push upwards of 300+ cu Ft/min of air at 100+psi. The media and water is loaded into a pressure tank (located on the front of the trailer). The resulting stream shot at the car is a mixture of compressed air, water and media which form a mist. It's surprising how little water is used in the mixture. When you use a the pressure washer unit, there is no compressed air in the mix, it's a pressuried water stream with media pulled in from a bucket. Alot more water.

If you go onto the dustlessblasting.com website, there are tons of videos showing how their systems work. It's actually remarkable on how little water is used in the process.

Dustless blast demo
 
I think the key item in the dustless blasting setups are the huge air compressors they use. Lots of cfm at high pressure resulting in fast removal and minimum mess. Kind of like the typical commercial dry sandblasting but with a little water to hold the dust down.
 
@Alex Waddell - Sorry, I did a crappy job of explaining "dustless blasting" Yes, it does use water in the mix with the abrasive media, but the mixture is combined with a ALOT of compressed air when shot at the car. I inserted an old link that shows "dustless blasting" at work. Notice at the beginning of the video the configuration of the trailer that pulls up to the Impala. Most of the trailer is a diesel powered air compressor, which can push upwards of 300+ cu Ft/min of air at 100+psi. The media and water is loaded into a pressure tank (located on the front of the trailer). The resulting stream shot at the car is a mixture of compressed air, water and media which form a mist. It's surprising how little water is used in the mixture. When you use a the pressure washer unit, there is no compressed air in the mix, it's a pressuried water stream with media pulled in from a bucket. Alot more water.

If you go onto the dustlessblasting.com website, there are tons of videos showing how their systems work. It's actually remarkable on how little water is used in the process.

Dustless blast demo
Thanks! That explains a lot.
One of the things that I enjoy so much about projects like this is that you get to learn a lot of stuff.
I suppose that I need to decide if a water only system is good enough for a DIY job or not.
Cheers!
 

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