On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 06:42:41 GMT, zap wrote:

I'm going to agree with Zap here- I've done a little more sandblasting
than I care to think about, and it's been my experience that any given
generic compressor with at least a 6 gallon tank should keep a little
blaster going in perpetuity. I wouldn't use a pancake or hot dog
style compressor, but any reasonable shop one should work just fine-
it doesn't even have to be a good one, I've used old junkers that
looked like they were about to fall apart with no apparent difference.

Hi All,

Very interesting what everyone thinks about sandblasters.

But from what some are saying, that they can only blast away for 20 - 30
seconds at a time, then stop to let the air build up again. Or some I
think said that they could go for a couple of minutes then had to stop
for the air to build up. My friends, If that is what I had to do with
any sandblaster, I would throw it away as next to useless, useful only
to clean spark plugs. I can maintain a constant blaster operation for
hours at a time, non stop, with My cheap open type siphon sandblaster.
And have done entire cars with it, as well as anything else I take a
mind to use it on.

It is not fast maybe, but my air compressor can maintain 60 Lbs at the
nozzle for as long as I keep the trigger pulled. And I have run it up to
4 hours at a stretch without letting up on the trigger. I have worn out
somewhere between 40 to 60 nozzles and run tons of dry play sand through
it. Having my boys sweep it up and put it back into the hopper till it
was just too fine to continue using.

The cabinet type sandblasters are nice when you have only small parts to
do, I built my own cabinet once, but what if you need to do something
like a car fender, or an engine block? It works good for putting
designs on Glass also, and if you are going to sandblast wood, remember
that you have to mask off anything that you don't want the sand to hit.

Just my opinion, but just don't take too serious what every one of us is
saying. Look over what is out there, and pick something that will do the
job you want done. It's your money and there is a lot of verity out
there. But keep in mind that there has been,over the years, hundreds
more of these cheep open siphon sandblasters sold and used. The design
has not changed in almost 100 years because they work. I've been using
mine for a little over 40 years now. It still works great.

Zap