RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

needed a replacement for my old cabinet so i picked one of these up on sale and with the 20% discount voucher cost about $180 out the door.

anyways, it is 100% disassembled so set aside nearly a full day to assemble the cabinet.

you may need additional friction tape/sealant to seal any holes that the weatherstripping that comes on the materials does not cover, mine does leak sand and i need to go back over the inside to seal up any small gaps, however it is sealed decently right out of the box and assembled but part of the point was to get rid of the messy old cabinet and have one that does not leave dust or debris all over the shop.

the area that mainly needs work is the gun. while the gun is actually decently constructed the internals are not ideal. i would advise taking the tension spring out of the back of the gun and pulling the pin assembly out, superglue the square cut seal onto the tapered edge of the pin and reassemble it. after a short while i was having inconsistent airflow due to the seal not moving with the pin to either allow air to flow through the gun or it would get jammed and the gun would always allow air to escape and would not rectify itself requiring it to be cleaned more and more frequently.

after fixing the internal seal ring the airflow problem was solved, but the nozzle would frequently clog once the sand had fine debris in it and collected even the smallest amounts of water from the compressor. i shimmed up the ceramic nozzles with a small o-ring to place it further away from the air nozzle inside the gun, allowing more sand volume to pass through and more easily with less clogging.

the internal light i feel also could use an upgrade, it is a little too dim. a $10 incandescent shop light would work better but would require rewiring and the supplied power supply probably upgraded as well. i use the supplied light but a more powerful one you could probably get by with less frequent window glass changes.

the gloves could probably be a few inches longer to reach to far wall inside but it is quite a deep cabinet, so i'm not really going to complain about that much. just don't drop anything out of reach.

only other complaint is the airflow, i have a shop vac attached to the side exit port and intake open but the glass screen inserts for the window still get dirty quite quickly from fine dirt particles once the plastic is etched requiring the covers to be replaced regularly.

comes with about 6 replacement glass screens and additional sealing tape to make about 5-6 more.

the gun also comes with 3 additional different size blasting tips for more precise or less precise work.

the cabinet is a decent size for cleaning many parts like rotor housings, brake calipers and possibly even smaller wheels(door opening is 20"X9.5" at the widest points with more room in the upper area, their door opening description is a little misleading since it is truncated). but you will need a large compressor to run it, my 7hp 80 gallon standup barely keeps up with the CFM required. my small shop vac is something i had previously but would also be a good investment, it collects all the extra sand and i clean out the vac's filter about every 2-3 hours to filter the fine dust out of the sand separately, the sand that is collected in the vac is filtered of large debris and put back in. while it isn't required to vacuum the cabinet it certainly keeps the sand clean and more reusable, considering the nozzle will clog with fine dust particles it also keeps the work area dust free, less requiring a dust mask to operate.

http://www.harborfreight.com/40-lb-c...net-68893.html


quite well worth the cost with a little modification. most comparable cabinets i was looking at were $650up and well into the thousands.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

Pros: works well, excellent construction for the cost
Cons: assembly instructions were rather thin, gun needs work, sealing could be improved

Ease of Use: 9/10 (-1 due to assembly time and weak assembly instructions)
Quality: 9/10 (-1 due to gun needing work and weak internal lighting)
Value 11/10 (can't be beat even for chinese crap the quality was good, can't expect more for the price)
Overall: 9.5/10

TheGoldenSB

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for this! I have looked at it many times at harbor but never pulled the trigger to get it. Everytime i think of harbor i think of cheap chinese tools the only upside is you can pay an extra 10 bucks and get a 1 year warranty and they dont care what happens they will always replace it so i make sure i always break it at the end of the warranty and get a new one then pay 10 bucks and get the warranty again. Even spiked my metal chop saw on the ground just to get a new one at the end of the warranty haha. The sad thing is the employees even encourage you to break it to get a new one.

I also have a 7hp 80 gal compressor also hopefully that should be enough to handle it. Looks like a pain in the *** putting together since it is 100% disassembled. Thanks though i might actually consider getting this.

muibubbles

iTrader: (36)

mine was awesome the first year i got it.. now its having trouble blasting efficiently... i know theres a bunch off threads everywhere how to modify it to make it better but im lazy and it gets costly... if i were to do it again id get one a professional one off craigslist/auctions...

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

there are some basic modifications listed to make it more efficient in the OP. it still does clog up but that is because i'm too lazy to filter the sand regularly or get a real water trap for the compressor. otherwise it works great still. there's addons you can get to make it self sufficient, but most people won't need them as those would be more for commercial regular use and this isn't really a commercial cabinet but it is actually rather close.

haven't modified it further because it hasn't really seemed to need it. if anything i will work on those 2 things mentioned which are of no fault to the cabinet. i regularly toss in rather dirty rotor housings and it gets them looking like new again and there is plenty of space to clean them in there.

i did check CL and auction houses regularly for months, but i got fed up and just got this one versus the $1k plus shipping units, partially because HF is 2 blocks away from the shop so i could have it within minutes of making the decision. i do hate inferior tools but figured what the hell, if i didn't like it i could easily get my money back(even though the for the cost it may as well have been free).

it's probably got about 50 hours of constant use already and hasn't really given me any headache so far. haven't filtered the sand in the unit yet but the water separator i am using obviously isn't worth a ****(unscrew the nozzle, blast it clean with the gun and screw it back together while the unit is still enclosed, takes 10 seconds). a mesh screen on the pickup tube would probably make filtering the sand an unecessary step also.

banzaitoyota

I built one of these a few years ago. Get the fun from tip tools in Canfield oh. Use a dust collector

S4 Vert

Harbor Freight, my favorite go to store for tools.

muibubbles

iTrader: (36)

i've seen the upgrades but by the time you dish out for the upgrades it puts the price tag right around a professional grade unit for a GOOD used price (auctions)

the new gun from tp tools alone is like 100
water trap cost me about 30-50
typically you need to add lights so lets say 20

dont get me wrong, its good for what it is, but after a decent amount of use those are the common upgrades to make it solid.