Who does their own sandblasting?

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T

TuffMudder

Still working on my FJ55!
10 Year
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I've heard inexperience sandblasting is a good way to warp the metal in your restoration.

I'm going to have to redo some parts on my cruisers body. I've previously had sandblasting done locally, twice before. One of the two is over an hour away and the other is a ham fisted buffoon. I took him a trailer with a ratchet strap that held down a folding metal cage on top of it. When I got it back, he had sandblasted it without even removing the strap which was in no way hidden. The strap was cheap, but it still left me with the impression that I wouldn't trust him with something important.

I have a compressor that will run a sandblaster and i'm wondering if I took a few pointers and took my time on the project if I could reasonable expect good results, or if the learning curve is such that i'd likely ruin some metal.
 
I do it regularly, but is a pain. Messy.
I have a covered concrete pad and reuse sand,to save $. Scoop w snow shovel.
It does great job for nick and crannies
Especially crusted rust.
Or if there's multiple flaky coats paint.

But DA sander for large panels, if not real rusty or flaking.

Wear a respirator under welding hood with clear plastic shield and ear plugs.


Blow off with lots of air,
Consider soap and water if hot outside
But not mandatory.
Epoxy primer very soon before flash rust
 
Sandblasting is messy, but the warping hysteria is overstated. It's not hard to get the feel for it. Make sure you wear the protective equipment listed above. You need a decent compressor with good scfm to keep up with a blaster, or you will be stopping and starting a lot.

One other item, you can do a lot of cleaning/prepping before you blast. I use a paint and rust stripping wheel (looks like a rice cake) on my 4" angle grinder and it takes off paint and rust with ease without damaging the base metal. I get 10 discs on Amazon for $4/wheel. Then just finish it up with a light blast, wipe with a cleaner degreaser, then epoxy prime.
 
Great info guys. Thanks.

Ron, I wouldn't mind the hour drive If I was doing it all at once, but i'm going to spray it myself, and I am going to be micromanaging time to get it done, so it would be 2 hours round trips for a piece or two, over and over again and would cut into already limited time, so I think i'm going to have to do it myself. I don't actually think i'll have to do a ton, just some panels I think, and I can use a DA or angle for a number of areas as mentioned above, frame is finished and body is mostly finished as well.

@jm599 forgive my ignorance, but how does soap and water fit in to sandblasting?
 
Washing dust and oil off before primer...
 
Are you wanting to sandblast parts that have not yet been painted or reblast parts?
 
I have some areas rust is showing through so there will be some reblasting in addition to some pieces that weren't blasted when the body and frame were. I'll use wire brush and DA for the flat parts, but would prefer a sandblaster for nooks and crannies
 
Last edited:
bobm said:
Aircraft paint stripper
Click to expand...

ohhh, now that does sound tempting. I'll look into that

J Mack said:
If you have a good pressure washer then just get a wet blaster attachment and blast it your yard, much easier and less mess than the other options you've posted about.

Simpson Wet Abrasive Sandblaster Kit for Gas Pressure Washers-SAN0002 - The Home Depot

Or,

Wet Sandblast Kit |



Click to expand...


I do have a pressure washer. I'll take a look at those links. Nice to have options between this and bob's suggestion.
 
@J Mack I was pretty excited about the prospect of wet sandblasting, but when I went to check on my pressure washer it's 3200 psi/2.4gpm and the lowest specs I can find on a wet sandblaster kit is 2500 psi/3.0gpm and that's minimum, it goes up to 10gpm so i'm thinking being below the minimum threshold would probably be a continuous headache.

I'll still put together a pvc booth and I can use aircraft stripper and get the hard to reach areas with dry blasting. From what I've read, I think glass media at around 80 psi should work ok.
 
I would order the Home Depot Simpson Wet Abrasive Sandblaster Kit Model # SAN0002 for $130.00 and give it a try, you are close and it might work. Home Depot is great about taking things back if it doesn’t work out for you.
 
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