Hi Bill,

Yes, that is absolutely true. But then I thought that this question
about the sand Blasters was about using one in a home shop environment.
I did not think that the reference here was for the sand blasters used
in a commercial undertaking.

As I recall, the original intent of the question had to do with sand
blasting wood Burls in a home shop. Asking if the air compressor he was
contemplating had enough power to do the job. Not for cleaning 100 sq ft
of steel plate in 5 minutes.

Yes, I have used those kinds of large sand blasters you are speaking of,
and even larger, in metal working plants where the constant air
pressure out of the large noel ran to close to 300 lbs psi and would use
up at least a thousand lbs of sand an hour, where you didn't hold the
noel, you only guided it. I have worked in sand Blasters where we went
into the chamber in special suits. But that is not the kind of sand
Blasting that the original thread started out with. That is NOT home
type sand blasting, and has no place in this thread.

Of course if you are sand blasting a Bridge, you would not use the small
sand blasters spoken about by most in this thread. And if you desire
to day in and day out sand blast car chassis while being paid by the
Job, you would use the proper equipment and air compressors to do the
job fast. But if you want to sand blast some wood, you had better not
use the kind of sand blaster that you are speaking of, for one blast and
there would be no wood left.

Zap

Bill wrote:
this really depends on the blaster and what you are blasting - even with the
smallest tip, my TIP brand blaster drains my 20 gal crafstman compressor
(it's 7.2CFM) in about 20 seconds - my 5 hp Quincy can keep up (19.5CFM at
160 PSI if I remember right) - if you are blasting rust off of a frame you
need more pressure than if you are bead blasting a casting or carving wood,
and a small tip uses less air but will take forever with a large dirty
object.


"Prometheus" wrote in message
...

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