Andy.I
Member
Hi Chaps,
I have assembled a wet bead blaster which works extremely well on aluminium ally castings, except where the component is clogged with burnt-on oil or corroded, pitted and discoloured. With a bit of experimentation I discovered that giving the corroded components a pre-blast of fine crushed glass gives the perfect surface which can then be wet bead blasted to a finely peened finish.
Having looked at dry blasters I have become aware that they require much higher airflow from the compressor due to the fact that the media is delivered to the bun by being sucked up by the venturi effect of the gun, as opposed to a wet bead blaster where a slurry pump pumps the water and bead mix to the gun and compressed air is used to propel the jet.
I have looked through the well-known sources (Ebay, Amazon, Machine Mart etc) and a 220L dry blast cabinet seems to be the order of the day, but they they all seem to require 15-25CFM and my compressor is 14CFM:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sandblas...-Cabinet-220L-Dust-Collector-New/352809207988
Does anybody have any practical experience of using one of these blast cabinets and can they advise me whether my Clarke Boxer will be sufficient:
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-boxer-14100-100-litre-belt-driven-air/
If it's on the weak side I think there are a couple of different mods to improve things:
1.) to expand the compressor's capacity by adding a 47kg (ca 100l) propane tank
2.) by modifying the hopper feed to the media pipe by introducing an air jet to drive the media up the pipe to the gun
Has anybody got experience of performing either of these types of modification, or indeed any others which might improve performance, please?
I have assembled a wet bead blaster which works extremely well on aluminium ally castings, except where the component is clogged with burnt-on oil or corroded, pitted and discoloured. With a bit of experimentation I discovered that giving the corroded components a pre-blast of fine crushed glass gives the perfect surface which can then be wet bead blasted to a finely peened finish.
Having looked at dry blasters I have become aware that they require much higher airflow from the compressor due to the fact that the media is delivered to the bun by being sucked up by the venturi effect of the gun, as opposed to a wet bead blaster where a slurry pump pumps the water and bead mix to the gun and compressed air is used to propel the jet.
I have looked through the well-known sources (Ebay, Amazon, Machine Mart etc) and a 220L dry blast cabinet seems to be the order of the day, but they they all seem to require 15-25CFM and my compressor is 14CFM:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sandblas...-Cabinet-220L-Dust-Collector-New/352809207988
Does anybody have any practical experience of using one of these blast cabinets and can they advise me whether my Clarke Boxer will be sufficient:
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-boxer-14100-100-litre-belt-driven-air/
If it's on the weak side I think there are a couple of different mods to improve things:
1.) to expand the compressor's capacity by adding a 47kg (ca 100l) propane tank
2.) by modifying the hopper feed to the media pipe by introducing an air jet to drive the media up the pipe to the gun
Has anybody got experience of performing either of these types of modification, or indeed any others which might improve performance, please?