Sand Blasting For Beginers

Started with the sand blasting today, we bought this machine in from Holland, although I think it comes from a little father east!

Before I powder anything, (separate topic, to be updated very soon!) I thought it best to get rid of any
surface rust and loose paint etc.

Do you like my Hi-tech cabinet!, it's no wonder the car industry is knocking my door down to get me to come back to the UK with Engineering skills like that!

Here are the before and after shots:











The first after ones are just beaded then the last are after etch primer coat.

TBH, there's a couple of things I would have done differently.
Firstly, a pre soak in either trisodium phosphate (sugar soap) for a few hours or even days or Caustic Soda for about and hour would have loosened the really caked on bits.
It took me about an hour a piece to get them clean,(90% clean in a couple of minutes, the other 10% took blooming ages) and it still didn't remove some bits of glue & paint.

This was left on and needed a bit more work:





Well that's it for now. Hopefully tomorrow, I will get some powder coat on & baked. We will see what it looks like. May have to do some primer filler? what do you think?

Sand blast bounces off any thing that's soft. It does get rid of it eventually but its hard work.

I guess your cabinet is to recycle the grit but not sure the cardboard will stand it for long and how do you get your hands in?!

Hmm, interesting  ,,  sounds like im taking the mickey when i read it but seriously.

After buying a unit similar, last year, and blasting the underside of my car - I'd gladly pay for someone else to do it! Horrible job!

Yomp said

Sand blast bounces off any thing that's soft. It does get rid of it eventually but its hard work.

I guess your cabinet is to recycle the grit but not sure the cardboard will stand it for long and how do you get your hands in?!

The blaster actually has a powerful vacuum in, so I pocked the vacuum in the box as well, which kept the dust down a bit. I do need to build a proper cabinet though, the cardboard won't take much more (Jim (startrek pun)) I put two pairs of gloves on, nitrile and softrubber, and pulled my sleeves down through the holes! I did manage to catch my skin once with the abrasive, but it didn't penetrate, fortunately.  The only other thing I didn't mention was that I would pickle the rocker cover before and after, to prevent grit getting in the engine after refitting.

Yomp said

After buying a unit similar, last year, and blasting the underside of my car - I'd gladly pay for someone else to do it! Horrible job!

Yeah, I'm NOT doing the underside, but you may notice a MK2 jag in the corner of one of the shots , SOMEONE, not me,  has got the job of doing the lot.

The rocker cover has in built oil seperator in it which will now be full of oil n grit! Probably a high pressure steam cleaner could be a good bet!

Yomp said

The rocker cover has in built oil seperator in it which will now be full of oil n grit! Probably a high pressure steam cleaner could be a good bet!

I did give it a blow out, but I think your right, either a high pressure cleaner, or caustic soda, or both! I may do it after powder coating to test the coating strength, I can always repaint it.