I just bought one tonight, could anyone recomend the best place to buy sand for it, also do they work as good as some claim? I have alot of rust im hoping it will clean up. especially under the rear of the car. Hopefully save me from sanding it.
I buy my sand at lowes. Just regular old play sand. Make sure you get some material for something like a screen door and sift all the sand before you use it. Those chunks that are in there will clog the blaster.
I have 2 little weak compressors, I have a feeling sand blasting will take awhile. A 16gal 2HP and a 5 gallon 2 HP compressor. I'll just keep switching back and forth.
A friend of mine used his 10 gal. 1 hp compressor to do sand blasting without any problems.....I plan on borrowing his blaster and using it with my 15gal 3 hp compressor.
What kind of sandblaster is it ?? A pressure pot or siphon feed ?? Regular play ground sand works ok but is very fine and hard to clean up after the fact. If you have alot of rust I would find a local supplier and get something a little more aggresive. Depending on what kind of blaster you got some types of media doesnt like to work as well as others. If you got a siphon feed type I would stick to the play ground sand. I stopped sand blasting all together unless I can fit inside my blast cabnit. You might want to think about buying a few roles or painters paper and tape ,and masking off a good size working section at a time. This is what I do when I have to sand blast. Helps keep the sand from working into every little crevis on the car,and clean up easier.
Dont use any sand from the beach or anything that may have salt in it, Ussualy a place that sells masonary materials will sell a sand that does not have salt in it.
If the sand does have salt, the salt will inbed into the metal and make it more likely to rust.
Sand blasters work great, hopefully everything works out for you aswell, good luck.
Thanks guys its a Sears model, has a conatiner that holds a few pounds of sand with a hose at the bottom that connects to the gun, at the top is a fill section with a sifter to keep out the big particles. Hopefully it will be alot easier for me then sanding, the under section of the rear has alot of small spaces the sander wont fit. first im going to pressure wash and gunk it then hit the rust with the sand blaster and prime and paint it, I will never get a show quality car but I want it too look good as I cruise the streets for the girls. I also have alot of small peices i'd like to hit the the sand blaster. Anyone have any before and after pics of a sandblaster at work? Im going to try the upper control arms tommorow, I bought new balljoints for them and will be finishing off the front suspension this week, then its just dropping in a new engine and trans and hitting the streets minus the few grand in body work. I almost bought a welder too, it was a 199 dollar sears wire feed, I dont know much about welders so held off, i'd like to learn how to since my car needs so much rust repair but dont know if something for that price range will cut it as far as floor pan repair and stuff like that.
True blast media is better. Eastwood or some place like that sells it on the internet. Or Auto Body supply stores carry it. Silica Carbide blast media is good for most rust/paint removal.
Check your local rental places if they carry blasters and compressors theyll almost definately carry 100lb bags of silca sand, around 6.25 here per bag