Blasting media for cabinet
 

For those of you that have a blasting cabinet, what are you using for blasting media, and why?

Sand, glass, walnut shells, etc?
:confused:

picked mine up from HR a few years back. great investment. as far as media, bought some glass bead media from them and tried it. it works ok but for the money, i have since switched back to silica sand, occasionally blending some black beauty when I want to be more aggressive with the blasting. really didn't see a noticable difference in the results.

On a more important note: make sure you have a vac setup hooked up to that cabinet. it'll put silica dust out if you don't and you certainly don't want to be breathing that stuff in your shop. i'm using a small cheap sears 2hp wet/dry vac with a home-made water bong between the vac and the cabinet to pull out the dust. dust-free for 3 years and the vac is still kicking with the same vac filter.

btw: i've used silica on steel, cast steel, and cast aluminum with good results.

Do not use silica sand. In short it gets in your lungs and takes up lung capacity. It's probably worse for you than smoking. With that said we use DUPONT starblast for removing paint and rust and glass bead for aluminum and parts we want a smoother finish on.

Bought glass bead from Northern tools .

I use black coal slag from Menards. $8 for 50# bag. No silica lung issues, cuts nice, lasts a while, cheap to replace when needed. I don't have a monster cabinet, i have the same harbor freight cabinet as ho421 likely, so no worries about warping or cutting to fast as the guns will not allow it.

Crushed glass from recycled bottles, $10 per 50# bag. Works great and no free silica.

I've used silica for years with no problem . But I to have a vac on my cabinet so it plulls all the dust out while I;m using it. I also use the paper mack while doing the blasting because along with the mask & the ear protection it helpls keep the sound down along with the dust. I never thought about a water dump in the vac line , but I'll have to hook one up & see how it works, it sounds great. I tried glass once but with the amount I need for my cabinet I need almost 100lbs to fill my cabinet & it cost me an arm & leg to fill it & it didn't last very long. It got soft to fast & had to go back to silica.

a tip a friend of mine does is to buy the beads from a place that sells road paint supplies.
It was alot cheaper and can be had in a couple different grades.
When it gets worn down just change it out. I think 50# was less than $30.

Do NOT use sand. In the course of my duties, I visit many sandblasting operations and nobody uses sand, even though everyone is suited, hooded and with a filtered fresh air supply. Commonly used media in commercial blasting includes coal slag (Black Diamond or Black Beauty), alum. oxide, steel shot, plastic beads and many other types as determined by the what the blaster is trying to accomplish (paint/rust removal, surface prep on new metal, etc). Please read http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/92-102/ before you decide what media to use.

After reading that reeport I think I'm going to change my mind about useing the silica sand in my blaster. I've already had a triple bypass & don't need some lung problems on top of it. I think I'll spend the money on glass or maybe black bueaty for my clean up of parts for my car now. Thanks For the info.

blast media
 

If you are using glass beads you are supposed to limit the pressure to about 85 pounds. Otherwise the beads will shatter and the life of the media is shortened a lot. Billk