I just got a media blaster and a powder coating system from harbor freight and I don't know if I am using it right. I bought glass media 80 grit and used the smallest nozzle. I am trying to clean a tpi intake, but I nearly used 15 lbs of media to clean one runner and it's not even done. How big of a nozzle should I use? What type of media is best to use? Also I want to powder coat this stuff when I am done. Would an old oven work for this? I was thinking about wiring up a 220 socket and putting an old oven in my garage. Thanks!

First of all I am new to this forum so if I did anything wrong please just point it out.

I use a blasting cabinet with just generic bead in it, an Eastwood powder coating system, and an old retired kitchen oven. I would suggest that you use Gumout Carb and Choke cleaner and a clean rag to clean it before you powdercoat it, and if the part is extra dirty or is porous I would recommend you prebake the part because it gives the powder a better finish. The only problem with a house hold oven is size, I have often wanted a bigger oven to do things like transmission cases. Just my

My buddy has an old household oven in the garage that we've done TONS of powdercoating in.

We use acetone to wipe everything down as a final cleaning before coating.

YOW... Yeah, something's wrong. I'm not a *-blasting expert, so I don't know exactly what it is, but I'd strongly suspect that it's the media that you're using. Take a look at the pic below:

Here we have one good ol' Aussie 9-bolt, pretty much "in the buff":


I did that (the whole thing) with somewhere around 10-15 lbs of sand. Try using different nozzles if you have some, but I'm guessing that the media that you're using is just too "soft" & that you might want to step up to something else.

go to lowes and get a few bags of play sand and try that, thats what i used to use on aluminum, on heavy applications i go to tractor supply co and get there stuff called black beauty. that stuff works great