Sandblasting medium

[stronics]

I just bought a really nice pressure pot sandblaster (USA) with the ceramic nozzle and was wondernig what you guys use for medium?
I would like to hear any tips on sandblasting procedure too.
Thanks,
David

[ol_rowdy1982]

black beauties and walnut shell does an excellent job. i dont really have any suggestions as for procedure, i just start at one end and work my way to the other till its done.

[drizler]

I never bought that sand giving you white lung while black beauty being ok stuff. If you are basting and it produces any dust of any kind you should be wearing a respirator, period. None of that stuff is good for you and you can't keep your face out of the fumes like you can when welding. I don't see any difference between beauty and sand and I recycle it till it about powders out.
My best advice: if you are using a rubber hose straight off the tank don't even bother cause it will be a squirt gun in short order, constantly plugged. Use a vertical run with a couple drops of steel or copper pipe like the TIP website outlines and a trap at the end.

[ZRX61]

Depends what I'm cleaning, I have a TP 960 & use walnut shell, glass bead, scatblast (recycled windshields, sharper than glass bead), Al Oxide... er.. & something else that escapes me right now, I know there are 5x 5 gal buckets next to the cabinet, can't remember whats in the 5th one...

Been trying to find plastic media but can't find any place closer than Ohio to buy it (I'm in L.A.). The one place that DOES stock it won't return my emails/phonecalls so I'm pissed at those crapheads...:mad:

[salvageclaus]

Triple zero sandblasting sand is what I use for blasting media

[mrkringles]

I use the cheap play sand at Home Depot. This is the stuff with all the silica in it that is harmful. I aways sandblast outside with the wind to my back and wear a good respirator.

John

[Greenbuggy]

I use this stuff called "black blast" I'm pretty sure it's actually coal slag that I buy from menards.

ANYTHING, even things that claim to have no/low free silica content are still very bad for your lungs. A supplied air respirator is the only way to go.

[enlpck]

Black beauty is very good for heavy cutting-- it is furnce slag . Quit hard, quite sharp, and desn't cake up like normal sand

Glass bead for light cleaning, raising surfaces, and surface peening.

Walnut shell for gentle cleanup. It doesn't tend to peen or stretch the underlying surface.

Alum oxide is similar to straight and or black beauty.

Pick you media based on what you will be doing. If you are doing a lot of heavy cutting, then you will need a media that can do it. If you are doing cleanup on machine parts, a more gentle media is good. If you are using the machine to peen or raise sufacs, then glass bead or steel hot is the best bet. Any of the medias will remove paint, but differnt ones are best for different circumstances.

On heavy paint, especially if it is soft, hard media tends to bed in rather than remove it unless you dig under an edge.

Don't go too heavy, keep the nozzle back a bit. If you get too close, ou tend to dig holes, and may find that a lot of the media is wasted... the air is moving fast enough to pull the media sideways. A little farther back and the media hits like bullets.

Keep moving. Go over an area several times rather than try to do everything at once. Especially when cutting off paint. The material will heat up where you blast (a lot of energy is going in) and the effectiveness of paint removal drops a the temp goes up and softens the paint. You also tend to dig holes if you hang out too long.

You generally want to get any heavy stuff (paint, rust, etc) off before blasting. Costs less and goes faster. Especially rust.

[Monte55]

It seems most are worried about the safety of the media you are using and its health hazzard. Think why you are using media to begin with and what you are removing with it. I think a respirator or good mask on outside work is always called for. I don't want to breathe
paint or rust dust any more than silica dust. Just my thoughts..............