trochoid

iTrader: (6)

Ah, so you're using a siphon feed, yes, filter finer. I have one window screen that never seems to be in the window frame of the shop, it sits next to the blast cabinet.

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, it seems to work on a vacuum. You can also run water or cleaner through it... I used Purple Power on some of the parts yesterday by running it through the gun.

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

I haven't tried liquids, would work though. Great idea.

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

I have 3 different sandblasters. The large cabinet I built, the siphon feed that you bought and the pressure tank one. I use the same sand in all of them. This is a river town, so the sand pit is 2 miles from my house. I buy a ton of masons sand at a time, for about 7 bucks. I have very little waste during the screening process buying this way. When I don't buy from the pit, I hit the home centers, buying masons sand in the bag I end up throwing out 1/3-1/2 of it after screening.

If you can find a fine play sand or the white sand like they use in ashtrays, you get a more uniform sand for blasting. On my blast cabinet, I load it with 150-180 lbs of sand at a time. I have a dual bag dust collector, bought for my wood shop tools, hooked up to the cabinet to pull the dust out. Eventually the sand gets so fine it's a dust cloud in the cabinet and it gets tossed on the gravel alley.

The big cabinet uses the same siphon feed blaster. The only change I made, other than plumbing for shop air, was buying Eastwoods carbon steel blasting tip. The tip is $50, but I have been using that same tip for almost 2 years. I can go through a couple of the ceramic tips a day when blasting fulltime.

Making a cabinet is easy with minimal woodwoorking skills. A few tricks on the construction and they work very well. Bottom of cabinet needs to be V shaped, or an inverted pyramid. Door/viewing area should be 1/4" acrylic with a plate glass attached on the inside of the acrylic. Oddly enough the glass resists the sand better than the acrylic. I use aluminum duct tape to attach the glass to the plastic. Regular duct tape doesn't hold as well and leaves too much adhesive when removing to change out the glass.

For gloves, a good pair of chemically resistant ones hold up fairly well. The cheap pvc ones that came with my original cabinet lasted 2-1/2 years. I just replaced mine and didn't want to spend $25 on Eastwoods gloves, so I bought a long pair of chemical gloves and sewed 12" from the leg bottoms of a pair of khaki pants on them for the length I needed. Yes, I can sew, so-so, too.

A decent shop vac is needed to pull the dust out of the cabinet. Hook it up to one end, cut a hole and mount an air filter in the other.

Lighting inside the cabinet is a must. One of those flourescent drop lights work quite well. Regular light bulbs are prone to breakage and getting sand in the threads can make bulb changes difficult.

Last thing needed is a decent source of air. Buy the biggest air compressor you can afford, don't cheap out on this. My 7hp, dual stage, 80 gal. 220v compressor runs about a 50% duty cycle when using the big cabinet when I'm runnung at 100 psi. With a 3 hp, 20 gal. comp., you will be spending half your time waiting for the comp to recharge, that is a pita.

As a side note, sand and moisture don't mix, install a water filter/collector on you air line.

Any other questions, feel free to ask. I can also post pics of my cabinet.

Side note on getting the rest of the rubber out of your control arms, sand will not do it, it's rubber, it just bounces off. A wire wheel and drill will remove the remnants, an 80 grit flap wheel works to a lesser extent.. Where the bushings seat the surface needs to be smooth for long term durability.