Sand blasters

[mlchris]

Has any one out ther use a sanblaster with a vacuam assist. I live in Idaho and it is cold and wet for several months. Just need to kow if this vacuam assist is adequate if using indoors. Any ideas.

[j cAT]

Originally Posted by mlchris

Has any one out ther use a sanblaster with a vacuam assist. I live in Idaho and it is cold and wet for several months. Just need to kow if this vacuam assist is adequate if using indoors. Any ideas.

sand blasting indoors will require air pressure breathing mask/resperator. as you know silica dust will be created and your surface contaminates like chromium/cadmium etc will be injested by you and the structure. plastic bead is safer but still need protection.

[denisond3]

Are you talking about doing sandblasting in a cabinet? In that case I regard the vacuum assist as being a neat feature - but expensive enough that I did without: Though I was just a hobbyist, wasnt earning money at it. And I never wanted to use any silica sand abrasive in a cabinet. For the big rusty stuff I waited till it was decent weather outdoors for blasting with '#2 quartzite' from a little 35 lb tank.
If you are talking about sandblasting within a building but not using a cabinet - I never considered that worth the trouble, just based on the cleanup and the repairs to the building structure, let alone the damage to my lungs.

[kahjdh]

Where do you guys get your media? What is the price difference between sand and plastic?

[denisond3]

Try a search at google.com, using the words " +sandblasting +media ". The plus signs mean that both of the words need to be in the sites, or they wont appear in the results. Hopefully the manufacturers/distributors will have local outlets you can deal with.
You will soon be an expert the difference between the cost of the many alternatives. The 'sand' was the only stuff that I could afford to use outside. For most other stuff the industry probably uses some kind of cabinet for capture/re-use. But most of my blasting was for big driveline items anyway; wheels, axles, brake drums, frames, etc.
Even though I lived in the Washington/Baltimore metro area at the time, I still had to drive quite a distance to get my supplies. From a place that did beadblasting I also got some used steel shot (just for the work of hauling it away), which worked well for the small amount of work I did using a cabinet.

[kahjdh]

I have a brush gaurd with rust so I wanted to repaint it. Do I need special nozzles for different media?