hey guys I want to make a media blaster but don't need a blast cabinet I have searched and it mostly brought up how to make the cabinet. What would you do?

 

BUMP

 

You'll need an air compressor, and a fairly decent sized tank to make it worthwhile.

You can get simple gravity-feed basting guns for fairly cheap. They work basically the same way as a paint gun. You can pick up a decent set for probably less than $50

 

Ebay has the guns for less than $10. Then you make whatever cbinet you want.

Harbor Freight sells decent cabinets complete with sprayer, media, and gloves for $90. (compressor not included)

 

Get a siphon feed blasting gun and a 55 gallon drum and you are good to go...Besides the compressor.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...ing-their.html

Ive been down this road. If you plan on doing any kind of blasting, look for a compressor that puts out at least 11cfm@90 psi. I picked mine up on sale at Northern Tool for $390, 60gallon. I bought my blaster from Maxus, it's a pressureized style. I trried the siphon style gun from Northern, but it was no where near as efficient for me compared to the pressurized. If you want to make your own media blaster, do a search for PA blaster. Basically you pay like $10 for a PDF file on how to make your own blaster. I ended up buiying one, but if nothing else it was interesting to see how people made theirs. It's very informative and has pics on how it's all setup along with trial and errors from others. If you're dead set on making your own blaster, you really need to search for PA blaster

BTW: I made a cabinet out of a metal 55 gallon drum. Its good for brackets and such, but wheels are a PITA!!

Good luck!!!

 

That’s the thing… basically it’s a question of getting a big enough compressor and a that point it doesn’t really matter what you use for a blaster. Suction and pressure blasters work about the same when you have enough dry airflow, no matter how many people reason that pressure should work better.

As far as designs, if you don’t like the idea of sticking the end of a vacuum setups gun in a bucket full of media, then there are plenty of designs for pressure style blasters out there (which if you look at carefully end up with a second hose bypassing the pressure pot and basically acting like a vacuum setup anyway)

 

it's basic physics, when you have both pressurized sand (media) and pressurized air flowing through a central tip, you get more efficient blasting. My siphon blaster seemed to use more air than my pressurized one, I guess it took more air to pull the sand out of the bucket than it did to draw it out of the pressurized tank. Check out the PA blaster. You're shooting air and "siphoning" out already pressurized media through the hose. But hey, to each his own. But with my experience I would much rather use my pressurized blaster than that the cheap $20 siphon style. Just buy the siphon style first, cheap and easy. If you feel it isnt working out for you, buy a pressurized blaster.

Plus, for me the pressurized blaster only uses one hose going into the gun which allows me to only run one hose inside the 55gal tank instead of putting two in there. It's tight enough as it is!

 

My answer was based on an engineering study done for the steel industry, and I’ll repeat, again contingent on _as long as you have a sufficient air supply_. It’s not a question of pressure but volume. Pressure above about 65psi just crushes and destroys your media and warps your parts without gaining any cleaning advantage with a suction or pressure blaster. Forcing more media through without sufficient force also doesn’t help which is what happens if you setup a pressure pot style blaster for the pressure in the pot to significantly affect the feeding of the media. OTOH, if you have a small compressor a pressure style is the only way you’ll get sand moving.

For example, in my case I have 1/2” line plumbed from my compressor to drier/separator/filter assembly and then ½” line plumbed to a regulator/gauge right on my blast cabinet to give it as much dry air volume as my setup can possibly get it, the only smaller normal size hoses are the ones inside the cabinet and it made a significant difference in performance between that setup and just connecting a normal 3/8” hose with a quick connect to the cabinet.

As far as PA blaster… he used to claim that his blaster is completely different than other pressure blasters though I don’t know in what way, I suspect that real world it is just the fact that you can use whatever materials you have around to make one, basically a simplified design. Since he claims that it can be made out of PVC I really doubt that it puts a significant amount of pressure in the pot, and if it does it’s just a plain stupid idea.

My $.02: use a suction style if you’re planning on using it in a cabinet, and a pressure pot style if you’re going to use it outside (they have some advantage where humidity becomes an issue, but neither will work with damp sand or a wet air supply and unless you really know what you’re doing (and you wouldn’t be here asking the question if you did) and were a welder certified to weld pressure vessels I would suggest staying away from any kind of pressurized setup bigger than about 5 gallons (the legal limit for the size of a pressure chamber that is not properly certified, and still dangerous enough in the event of a rupture).

If you want a pressure style one than the simple fact is that you probably won’t succeed building one for cheaper than buying one at harbor freight (I just went looking for the fittings to convert a large propane tank or Freon tank to an air tank and found that they cost about the same as a 10 gallon air tank setup from harbor freight and that the 5 gallon was actually cheaper than I could get the fittings for).

 

I think that depends on what you are blasting. I use aluminum oxide set at 90psi on thick cast pieces, and it works like a charm. If it's breaking the media down, I sure cant tell. Ive only been blasting with this setup for a few months now

 

Thank for all the responses guys. I really have come to the realization that i do not have a compressor big enough to run a good sand blaster. My compressor is a 150psi 4 gal and my dads is a 20 gal 135 psi unit. I think that I will try the gravity fed one I see on ebay first then if that won't cut It I'll try a cheep pressurized one.