Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:38:13 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Least of your problems. These things use **** loads of sand but only
have a cleaning area of about 10mm wide. And the carbide nozzles wear
at a phenominal rate.

As a guestimate, doing the front of an average house would take 2-3
tonnes of sand (which you then have to get rid of) and take weeks.
Carbide nozzle will last around 3 hours @ £15 a pop.

The link posted was to a wet blaster not dry. I can see that a dry
blaster would use a lot of sand and needs BOFO compressor (trawling
about the web yesterday I found a dry blaster, 72CFM @ 100psi...).

As I see it a wet blaster is just a pressure washer with some
abrasive in the water flow. The picture in the link shows a normal PW
lance with the grit attachment on the front. Nozzle wear could still
be a problem though. I shall have to ask some questions before going
that way. We have plenty of space to lose a tonne or two of grit
though, just have to shift it.


Serious stuff!
I'd at least do a small trial with paint stripper before embarking on
something that drastic. In my case it lifted the paint layers from the
masonry quite neatly. Even on an irregular surface, and left to dry, it
may well flake sufficiently to make it easier to remove.