Cliff,
I went through the same questions as you regarding bead blasting. I
ended up fabricating a blasting booth in my garage that could be
assembled/disassembled in about an hour. So far it seems to work great
and keeps the dust in the garage to a bare minimum. I don't plan on
doing any final painting in there, so I'm not real concerned about the
little dust that remains in there.
I used 2" PVC tubing and built a 7' x 8' x 7'(tall) box. - Big enough
to walk into and place fenders etc. in. The walls were made from some
heavy, clear plastic sheeting that hung from the upper rails of the box
from rope that was strung through some eyelets I installed in the
plastic. The roof was another sheet of clear plastic that was laid over
the top and fastened to a tarp on the floor with bungee cords. To get
in and out, I bought a zipper that sticks to the plastic. (I used clear
pastic to allow light in)
A booth this size can easily fit into a one-car garage and you can
place a table in there to hold your work piece as well. During
blasting, I just walk into the booth, zip it up and spray. All of the
media stays in the booth and can be recycled by sweeping it up. By the
time I bought the PVC, plastic, eyelets, and bungee cords it was about
$75.
If you wanted to put a whole tub in it, I think it would definitely be
a possibility. You'd just have to change the dimensions of the booth.
I used a siphon-feed blaster last week but I think I'll move to a
pressure feed model from Harbor Freight next time(~$100). The
compressor I bought from a pawn shop for $130 (25 gal, 4 HP, 5.8 CFM
@90 psi, 110V) and seems to be adequate. The best thing about this is
that it can all come apart, and be stored in a small space. I don't
have any pictures of it right now, but I may be able to get some if you
or any one else is interested.
Total Cost of blaster and Walk-in Cabinet:
Cabinet: $75
Compressoer $130
150# media $25
Sand Blaster $100 (pressure unit)
Sandblasting Hood $20
TOTAL: $250
-Dan Scharpf
dfscharpf@yahoo.com
77MGB (being blasted)
54 TR2 TS3590L (waiting to be blasted)
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Cliff Hansen wrote:
I've got the fenders off my tub. There's enough surface rust
on the insides, as well as some spots of more serious rust, to
make me want to bead blast the panels to clean them up for
primer. I mean the four fenders and much of the tub.
There's one guy in Albuquerque that does blasting for whole
cars. He quoted me $75 per fender, $100 for the hood, and
$500 (at least) for the tub. For that kind of money, seems like
I should be able to get my own equipment (including the big-%&*!
air compressor) and do it myself. Then I can do the frame
as well.
Of course, you can't just walk out and buy a cabinet big enough
to roll a tub into. Can this be done in a 20' square garage?
Thanks,
Cliff Hansen
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