Has anyone here converted a suction type bead balst cabinet to a pressure
vessel type? I am now struggling with he speed and efficieny of my medium
sized blast cabinet. The cabinet itself is just the right physical size for
my needs, I just need to increase the speed of it for blasting heavily
encusted things. Ebay shows a few similar sized presure fed machines, and a
few separate pressure vessels. Marrying up a vessel to my machine seems a
good idea, ut I am unsure just what I will need to do this. I have enough
air for either typ. Thanks

You do realize that a pressure fed blaster is a "batch" process while a
suction is a "continuous" one? That is, with a pressure pot you have to
stop and refill when it's empty and a suction cabinet continuously
recirculates the medium.

Assuming you knew that, then if your question is "How do I make a
pressure blaster a continuous process?", I think you're out of luck. No
doubt it's possible (i.e., wouldn't violate any natural laws), but too
complicated to be realistic.

I'd be very interested in being shown wrong,
Bob

"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
You do realize that a pressure fed blaster is a "batch" process while a
suction is a "continuous" one? That is, with a pressure pot you have to
stop and refill when it's empty and a suction cabinet continuously
recirculates the medium.

Assuming you knew that, then if your question is "How do I make a pressure
blaster a continuous process?", I think you're out of luck. No doubt it's
possible (i.e., wouldn't violate any natural laws), but too complicated to
be realistic.

I'd be very interested in being shown wrong,
Bob

well, you can do it (conversion, that is, not making it be a continuous
process). the advantage of a pressure pot is that you need less psi/gph to
do the same job but you do have to stop occasionally to move the grit back
to the pot.

buy the pressure pot (i have the HF one). that comes with a gun. drill a
hole in the cabinet to pass through the hose if the hole that's already
there is not large enough.

the normal pressure pot cabinet usually has a swinging trapdoor in the
bottom to let the grit out into a bucket to make this easier, but it's not
necessary. i built my own cabinet out of mdf with a flat bottom, so i just
open the door and use a coffee tin to move the grit back to the pot. filter
the grit through a fine metal mesh screen appropriately sized to the grit
you're using, so the gun or pot doesn't clog, as it's a pain to take either
apart.

they also make foot switches for pressure pots that make the job easier, and
let you get away with just having a nozzle at the business end rather than a
gun.

there are very few places that sell just the gun, and for some reason,
they're expensive. if anyone has a source for cheap pressure pot guns, i'd
like to hear about them.

regards,
charlie
http://glassartists.org/ChaniArts