Media blasting?

[doord521]

Has anyone had a cab media blasted? How much did it cost?

[69FJWagon]

Try to stay away from media blasting it can cause the metal to warp bad... did that to my buddys mustang race car, lets just say good thing its a race car :D try looking into SODA blasting it works great and is alot easier on the metal

[Pacific coast Datsun]

Look in Mike klotz's NL 320 thread [huge]. He made a home sand blaster using glass beads that worked great.

[tnip]

everything i've seen and read about it says that warpage is an issue if you're doing an entire body. but if you're doing spots i don't think that's an issue, and even when you're talking about a massive flat area if you take your time and distribute the pressure evenly you should be ok. right?

[69FJWagon]

Troy Ermish sand blast floors and engine bays with no problems but I would stay away from the roof and any long flat surface. with soda blasting it takes the paint off but doesnt remove body filler so you can see what is under the paint... from what I understand :confused:

[tnip]

i assume you mean baking soda? it's all the same process it's just whether you use actual sand or walnut shells or baking soda or whatever you need to use and whatever you're set up to use. baking soda is the most "gentle" thing as far as i know. basically what you said. :)

[mklotz70]

Slight correction. I used a nickle slag by product for the engine bay and motor, because it's cheap. I used the glass beads in the cabinet.

 

As for the warping. I you are doing it yourself at home like I did, you can't really blast hard enough or fast enough to warp it. If I blast on a panel in the same spot for a bit, you can feel the heat increasing. The commercial blasters use a higher pressure and a much greater volume of media.....which creates a lot more heat. The plastice media is supposed to work pretty well, but I think it's pretty much been replaced by soda blasting. From what I've heard, the soda is blasted on with water to keep the dust down....which would also cool the process. Anyway......

[doord521]

I was going to have it done. Mainly was wanting to do the engine bay, floors,and jams...

[Icehouse]

Frank and I went in halfs on a blasting cabnet, it was 200 plus tax for the cab. So far we really haven't blasted much. All we have is walnut shells and the are kinda wussy. I want gravel or something :)

[tnip]

just go buy some bb's :D

[ppeters914]

Frank and I went in halfs on a blasting cabnet, it was 200 plus tax for the cab. So far we really haven't blasted much. All we have is walnut shells and the are kinda wussy. I want gravel or something :)

 

BUDDY! :D How big a cabinet? Can it use different types of media?

[Icehouse]

BUDDY! :D How big a cabinet? Can it use different types of media?

 

 

Its hmmm 2' x 2' x 3' would be my guess it is on a stand with a light. I think mike has the same one.

[fiveoneohray]

There is a shop next door to mine that builds vintage racecars that are nicer than most show cars and they have every chassis stripped and sandblasted and have no issues with warping. They also have every engine bay, cockpit, and trunk powdercoated also with no issues with warping.

Keep in mind these are $100k+ cars when they are done mostly Bmw 2002's and some Datsun 510's.

I do work for them and I have personally have not seen any warping going on.

They have all the chassis taken to Alternative Blasters in Marysville Wa.

[ppeters914]

They have all the chassis taken to Alternative Blasters in Marysville Wa.

 

Several roadster folks recommend them. If roadster bodies & panels can take it...

[pope_face]

I'm planning on getting everything on the truck blasted... fenders, hood, doors, cab, tailgate, bed, and frame... possibly also the differential, although I'm not sure if I'm keeping it. I'd like to take it to a reliable place, preferably somewhere on this side of the border though... anyone know a good place in Vancouver, BC, or somewhere in the Lower Mainland? And... anybody have any idea how much it'd run to get EVERYTHING sandblasted at a reasonable place?

[]2eDeYe]

Hey I live in Marysville, sweet...my new cab and frame are in for it now :D

 

Thanks for the info.

[pope_face]

Redeye: How much are you paying to get the cab and frame done? It's a couple hours from my place, but if it's as good as you folks say it is, I might have to make the trip myself.

[Figbuck]

I'm sure you could make a mess of a vehicle if you didn't have the right setup for sand blasting. I sand blasted my frame, the bed and all the bodywork to bare metal this summer. It was a lot of work. Very slow, time consuming and a huge mess. It worked out good in the end.

 

I have compressors in my garage and at my shop that put out a lot of air and have big tanks so I could run the little sand blaster gun that I used flat out. I used a prooduct that I get from a construction supply place called #20/50 grit Abrasive Sand. It is about ten pounds for a buck and I used five bags for eight bucks a bag. I could sweep it up and reuse it but it didn't seem to cut as well.

 

A long time ago I sprayed three coats of cheap Marine enamel on the truck with no primer. It was cool in that it kept the truck from rusting but now that I want to paint it so that it looks nice, I had to strip it.

 

If I wasn't such a cheap sucker I would have taken it to a place over on SE 82nd that does media blasting for hotrods and customs. It might cost more than you want to pay, but I really earned the money I might have saved. It was alright, it worked out for me, but if I had to do it over again, I would strip everything off the truck and send it out. I just didn't have the time, money or space to take it all apart.

 

[five2one]

Having just gone through this process I think I will tell you what I did. First to do was the frame, being cheap and knowing I could do this myself I bought one of the pressure sandblaster from harbor freight. Cost 70.00 then I had to buy the sand which is aluminum oxide. cost about 50.00 for 100lbs. For this I hung plastic in my garage and sealed everything off as best I could. When doing this you have to wear the proper safety gear, I used a full face respirator and coveralls with a hood. It still took a couple of days and a lot of sweat. You then have to get primer and paint on it asap or it will start to rust everywhere you touch it. Wear gloves when handling blasted metal.

 

Next I had all of my doors, fenders, hood, front valance media blasted with plastic media. This is what they use where I work. It took another guy and myself about 3 hours to get this done. This removes the paint but not the rust it is also not near as agressive on the metal and does not remove the original phosphate coating. so before you paint you still need to sand or grind all of the rusted spots. Of course if you have bad rust spots like holes you will need to cut them out and weld in new metal. I paid this guy 60.00 for helping me

 

Then I had to do the cab. Having not learned my lesson from the frame and I wanted to get my moneys worth out of my blaster I bought I decided to blast this myself. I took this to my dads house and did this under his carport. Much better than the garage but still messy to use. If you want to know what this is like go to the beach, and then throw sand all over your body except when you are blasting it has all of the old paint and rust mixed in with it. Good times :mad:. I would not repeat would not do this again.

 

So when it came time to do the bed I found a place called MarionAG it's by Auroura OR. that did sandblasting. I called them up he said it would take a couple of hours @ 90.00 an hour. this is for top and bottom of the bed. I took it to them and had it done and it only took 1 1/2 hours and cost 135.00 I did not have any issues with warpping of the panels. But of course my bed was pretty beat up.

 

So with all of this hindsight and if I had it to do all over I would be a cheap skate and take it to somebody and have it sandblasted. It cost about the same and with none of the work involved. Just my two cents

[pope_face]

five2one: Thanks for the info... Any idea if this will strip off things like Rhinoliner or undercoatings? I'm not sure if I have any on my truck, but if I do I'd like to know that I can get it off, rather than ending up with bare metal in most spots and big chunks of rubber in others.

 

It doesn't sound that bad if you're willing to take the time to do it yourself... I'm planning on doing most of the paint and welding myself anyways, so I suppose it would make sense to do the sandblasting as well. You didn't mention the type of compressor you used though... will most normal contractor air compressors work, or does it require something special (high pressure, high volume, certain adaptors, etc)? I have access to reasonably good air compressors, so if I can just use a normal one for both sandblasting and paint it'll save me some money.

[five2one]

When the sand/media hits anything that is kind of soft it tends to bounce off and is very slow process. it will take it off but it's not worth the time. Best is probably to use chemical paint stripper before the blasting process. Then to blast that surface. As for the compressor mine is a 6 hp with a 60 gal tank. you could do it with something smaller but it gets very slow. you will also need a couple of water traps, if water get in your sand it plugs everything up and the process stops.

 

So pope_face you still think you want to do it yourself? Make it easy on yourself and have it done. The welding and the painting is the fun part the basting is not call around and get some prices before you commit. I was stuburn and thought I could do it easier. Well I was wrong Its much easier and I think even cheper in the long run to have it done. You also have to make sure you do it when its dry and that you have a dry place to keep it untill its get primer on it. I would recomend a garage and not a carport because with all of the moister in the air it will still rust under a carport unless its very dry outside.

[pope_face]

five2one: Thanks for the points... I do have a garage, so if I go through with it there shouldn't be much of an issue with that. I can see what you mean about the moisture and hassle of it all... The only reason I'm even considering doing it myself is just because of the amount of work needed. If it was only a couple panels or even just the cab or frame I'd take it into the shop, but I need everything done... you said the bed took about an hour and a half... I suppose the cab might take about 2, 2.5, the frame maybe an hour if it's stubborn, and then however long it takes to do the tailgate, both doors, both fenders, and hood... maybe another two or so hours for those last bits... so assuming they get it done quick, it might take 6.5 hours to get the entire thing done...

 

Actually, I do see your point now... I suppose the hardest to do would be the cab... other than that everything else should be pretty basic, at least for the shop. I might actually look around for a shop to do it... if I could get them to sandblast all the paint and rust off, then paint it in a weld-through primer I could get the welding done when I have time... else I'll have to get it sandblasted, welded, and then primed in pretty quick sucession...

 

Again, nobody knows of any reputable shops this side of the border? I'll try giving Alternative Blasters a call, like mentioned above, but ideally I'd rather not deal with crossing the border.

[five2one]

Just to clear things up. The times quoted was for the parts I had done @ a shop, the parts I blasted myself {the frame and cab} took about 2 10 hour days for each piece plus about a day of prep for building a plastic room to do it in. I understand where your coming from because of your location.

Another option is to use paint striper. You could do one panel at a time, blast the rusty areas with one of the spot blasters and then prime. Anyway you did it its still work and a learning experiece.

[pope_face]

I know you said it took you a while to do the blasting yourself, but I'm trying to figure out how long it would take a shop to do it. I want it done well, so all the paint and rust is stripped without warping the body. I know it's going to cost me, but if I could get all the panels blasted and primered in weld-through primer for under $1000 I'd consider it... if I could get all the welding done as well for that price, then I'd probably go for it. I really don't know how much it costs to get these things done around here, so I can't really begin making a decision on which route to take. I'll look around at some of the shops here and call that place in Washington, but I don't even know which places to start with around here... I need a reliable shop, but who that is, I don't know.

[mklotz70]

There's a thread on nwde that covers some of the sandblasting stuff.

 

http://www.nwde.org/extras/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5152

 

I did a bunch of blasting on the NL with the home shop stuff. It was sure nice to be able to do it myself, but it's definitely tedious work.

 

You don't have to worry about warping panels if you do it yourself....even the HF pressure feed sandblasters won't generate enough heat. If you're still worried about it, simply move around a bit, just like you would if you were welding on a panel.