Blasting

[Alley Kat]

Anyone here do DIY blasting? Is aluminium oxide too harsh for thin steel parts, like a wing? It has some thin brackets that look a bit delicate too. Made a blasting setup big enough for panels, axles, bike frames etc but not used it yet, and not sure what media to go with for the thin steel.

[ian.stewart]

Depends what grade of oxide you use, Im sure we used to use some stuff like dust, Dont use sand----its been banned because of with lung problems, Silicosis., not good,
Walnut shells and pplastic media are both used for bodywork, but I dont think either takes off rust.
My mate has used the local furniture strippers to remove paint with great success

[katanaman]

it should be fine but it depends on the pressure and cfm your hitting it with. Cant remember what grit I have to be honest can find out tomorrow tho if you want. Anyway I use it @ 100 psi with around 10cfm through a pressure pot and its fine even on thin aluminium.

[Alley Kat]

Cheers chaps. I've got masks and an extractor planned but didn't fancy sand because of the dust. If you wouldn't mind Marki that'd be good, I've no idea what spec to ask for, don't want to end up with 25kg of something intended for blasting the Forth Bridge : )

[JSF55]

i used normal? blasting grit as it was free, what i found was after about a minute of blasting the pressure was already dropping in my compressor, 8cfm with a 100 litre tank, so i started at about 70 psi and it was fine, still didn't last more than about 3 minutes, that was mostly on th small pop bits i did, i think langy has the write up i did on the tech archive of the nsra, john

[Alley Kat]

Thanks John, I'll have a look for that, cheers.

[Alley Kat]

Just found this page which has a free blasting/media guide on request, and spec sheets on various media, looks very useful on the face of it:

http://www.guyson.co.uk/consumables/media.html