proxlamus© Posted March 29, 2010 Author Share Posted March 29, 2010 well... months later.. I just bought the Eastwood Soda Blaster this morning.. FREE shipping which is nice! Saved $66!! As soon as I get it, Ill take pics, a quick video and write up a review. I believe they said it was on back order till the 9th. That will give me time to build a nice enclosure so I can blast in my garage without worrying about soda and dust ALL over the garage. Should be interesting!! If it sucks.. Ill sell it or return it lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X64v Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 (edited) I just made friends with the owner of my machine shop. $10 lets me use their glass bead cabinet, blast as many parts as I want each time I go. Wouldn't help with an entire car but I can do anything smaller than a door/fender/engine block. Definitely interested in your review though. Edited March 30, 2010 by X64v Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad-ManQ45 Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 TPTools has a set of directions for sale (to make your own blast cabinet) for ~$7, and sells the parts that you can't make yourself. I modified their directions to make a 4' long cabinet instead of 3'. Depending on what I'm blasting it's either beads or a combination of beads and Aluminum Oxide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 5, 2010 Author Share Posted April 5, 2010 Well well.. what an experience.. I received the Soda Blaster from Eastwood .. I was able to assemble the unit fairly easily.. but the hoses were practically glued to the hose barbs, so I had to cut them with a razor blade and add some grease for the next time I need to remove the hoses. I built an enclosure in the garage out of PVC and 3.5 mil plastic... cost about $80 or so. I added a IN and OUT fan... which turned out to be a bad idea.. the IN fan pushed more air then was coming out.. even with the IN fan set to SLOW and the OUT fan set to FAST.. so soda blasted out of the enclosure and covered the garage. I blocked the IN fan and just kept the OUT fan on and kept the room in a negative pressure, which was pretty effective. I was able to work for about 20 min before the room became soooooo dusty the visibility was so bad I couldnt see the end of my car.. so I took a break. Once I adjusted the valves I got the soda blasting really smoothly.. I was able to work with about a 3/4"-1" diameter blast zone, one quick pass got the clear coat off, the next pass removed the paint, the next pass removed the primer. It works fairly quickly.. but imagine scrubbing a car with something the size of a quarter. itll take a while. I will use a sander and grinder for the big body parts, and use the soda blaster to get in areas that I cant reach with a orbital sander or angle grinder with a wire wheel. I went through about 50 pounds an hour.. I purchased the XL (coarse) soda from Harbor Freight for about $39 ea. so thats almost $40 an hour to operate this. I could imagine easily going through 600 pounds on a car that hasnt been touched.. I WILL be re-using the old soda all over the floor.. and will strain it all out. Hopefully itll work ok as a fine media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Well well.. what an experience.. I received the Soda Blaster from Eastwood .. I was able to assemble the unit fairly easily.. but the hoses were practically glued to the hose barbs, so I had to cut them with a razor blade and add some grease for the next time I need to remove the hoses. I built an enclosure in the garage out of PVC and 3.5 mil plastic... cost about $80 or so. I added a IN and OUT fan... which turned out to be a bad idea.. the IN fan pushed more air then was coming out.. even with the IN fan set to SLOW and the OUT fan set to FAST.. so soda blasted out of the enclosure and covered the garage. I blocked the IN fan and just kept the OUT fan on and kept the room in a negative pressure, which was pretty effective. I was able to work for about 20 min before the room became soooooo dusty the visibility was so bad I couldnt see the end of my car.. so I took a break. Once I adjusted the valves I got the soda blasting really smoothly.. I was able to work with about a 3/4"-1" diameter blast zone, one quick pass got the clear coat off, the next pass removed the paint, the next pass removed the primer. It works fairly quickly.. but imagine scrubbing a car with something the size of a quarter. itll take a while. I will use a sander and grinder for the big body parts, and use the soda blaster to get in areas that I cant reach with a orbital sander or angle grinder with a wire wheel. I went through about 50 pounds an hour.. I purchased the XL (coarse) soda from Harbor Freight for about $39 ea. so thats almost $40 an hour to operate this. I could imagine easily going through 600 pounds on a car that hasnt been touched.. I WILL be re-using the old soda all over the floor.. and will strain it all out. Hopefully itll work ok as a fine media. What size air compressor do you have and whats the duty cycle like when you are using the blaster? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 6, 2010 Author Share Posted April 6, 2010 (edited) Im running a 60 gallon Husky air compressor. 135 PSI maximum pressure and air delivery 11.5/10.2 SCFM @ 40/90 PSI. As for duty cycle.. I have no idea what that means .. haha. sorry. It pretty much runs ALL the time while im blasting. I usually have to give the pressure pot a big shake to get the soda down the in siphon, every few minutes or so.. but I dont have any problems with the compressor running out of air. Edited April 6, 2010 by PrOxLaMuS© Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Im running a 60 gallon Husky air compressor. 135 PSI maximum pressure and air delivery 11.5/10.2 SCFM @ 40/90 PSI. As for duty cycle.. I have no idea what that means .. haha. sorry. It pretty much runs ALL the time while im blasting. I usually have to give the pressure pot a big shake to get the soda down the in siphon, every few minutes or so.. but I dont have any problems with the compressor running out of air. duty cycle would be what percentage of the time it is actually running. So it running all the time answers my question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junglist Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Im running a 60 gallon Husky air compressor. 135 PSI maximum pressure and air delivery 11.5/10.2 SCFM @ 40/90 PSI. As for duty cycle.. I have no idea what that means .. haha. sorry. It pretty much runs ALL the time while im blasting. I usually have to give the pressure pot a big shake to get the soda down the in siphon, every few minutes or so.. but I dont have any problems with the compressor running out of air. Sounds like my setup except I have a Craftsman compressor that runs constantly when blasting. I also need to constantly shake the harbor freight pressure tank that holds the media, it gets all caught up in there if I don't do that...it gets quite old after a few minutes but it does the job. I use a harbor freight blasting box too...but there usually is so much dust in the box that I can't actually see what I'm doing and just have to "feel" it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 6, 2010 Author Share Posted April 6, 2010 Oh BTW... I would NOT recommend blasting an entire car with this. It will simply take too long and the bags of media will add up very very fast. I would take it to a shop or RENT a towable blaster. I will use this for blasting parts and getting into the cracks and areas that a hand sander cant reach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 17, 2010 Author Share Posted April 17, 2010 Ive learned a few things over the past week or so.. First.. use a Dual Action Sander on the car, then use the sandblaster for hard to reach areas Second.. if you build an enclosure like I did.. I tried using duct tape and 3 mil plastic and PVC for a frame. I would duct tape the plastic to the PCV, which didnt turn out to be too successful. I had leaks all over when I put the booth in positive pressure and the plastic would fall all over the place. I bought a can of Heavy Duty Spray Adhesive.. which is AWESOME. It really seals the booth and I havent had any issues with the plastic falling apart or leaks causing my garage to be encapsulated in a cloud of dust Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zgeezer Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 Well I just talked to a tech at eastwood.. he owns this model and loves it.. I asked for complete honesty and said I may even upgrade.. but he told me that the $279 model is plenty for my application and compressor. The 1 year return policy is a HUGE plus. I would never use it and return it like 75% of the customers at Home Depot do.. but if I'm unsatisfied.. and isn't how the product is advertised.. return it may be I think i'm going to give it a go.. with your typical Hybridz follow up.. pictures and even a video of the blasting =) - problem is I'm cheap.. if I spend $250-300 on having a shop blast the car.. i have a stripped car and thats it.. but with $300 I can strip my own car and walk away with a blaster I can sell for say $200.. or strip future projects.. help friends out etc etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 18, 2010 Author Share Posted April 18, 2010 not really sure why you copied and quoted my old post zgeezer, with nothing else added after the quote???! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zgeezer Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 I bought a HF pot style sand blaster ten years ago. Loaded it with fine sand from local sand dunes (seriously, I live in the desert) and stripped my Z, uncovered little pinpoint rust throughs and converted them to little manholes the size of a dollar bill. Took two weekends and a LOT of sand. Static electricity shock was a major hardship. Running all that fine sand through rubber hose lines in this dry climate creates enough static to keep you jumping: compare with pulling out the coil wire of a running flat head Ford. You will have sand grains every where ... including your Wazoo. Really fine sand is not easy to locate. The usual stuff found at Home Depot does not work well. The grain size is too big and you can warp/pit the metal; A risk for all sandblasting using silica as the medium. The sand dune stuff I used is very, very fine... think flour like... not rice. If you pay retail for media and are not recovering it for reuse.... you will spend additional bucks. Cleaned sand from chassis with a combination of an extended wand on an air gun at one end and a shop vacuum on full suck at the other end. Created a perfect surface to apply POR 15, which took about 4 hours, with beer time, and several Home Depot throw away brushes of different widths. If you live in a subdivision with neighbors any closer than 400 yards and are planning to sandblast your Z out in the driveway or back yard, I suggest that you contact everyone and BUY THEM OFF before you begin work. Having said all that, I do use this blaster all the time for cleanup of small parts. It has been a useful cheap tool; but if I had had access to a shop that charged me only $250.00; I'd have jumped on it in a flash. G:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zgeezer Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 I bought a HF pot style sand blaster ten years ago. Loaded it with fine sand from local sand dunes (seriously, I live in the desert) and stripped my Z, uncovered little pinpoint rust throughs and converted them to little manholes the size of a dollar bill. Took two weekends and a LOT of sand. Static electricity shock was a major hardship. Running all that fine sand through rubber hose lines in this dry climate creates enough static to keep you jumping: compare with pulling out the coil wire of a running flat head Ford. You will have sand grains every where ... including your Wazoo. Really fine sand is not easy to locate. The usual stuff found at Home Depot does not work well. The grain size is too big and you can warp/pit the metal; A risk for all sandblasting using silica as the medium. The sand dune stuff I used is very, very fine... think flour like... not rice. If you pay retail for media and are not recovering it for reuse.... you will spend additional bucks. Cleaned sand from chassis with a combination of an extended wand on an air gun at one end and a shop vacuum on full suck at the other end. Created a perfect surface to apply POR 15, which took about 4 hours, with beer time, and several Home Depot throw away brushes of different widths. If you live in a subdivision with neighbors any closer than 400 yards and are planning to sandblast your Z out in the driveway or back yard, I suggest that you contact everyone and BUY THEM OFF before you begin work. Having said all that, I do use this blaster all the time for cleanup of small parts. It has been a useful cheap tool; but if I had had access to a shop that charged me only $250.00; I'd have jumped on it in a flash. G:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zgeezer Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 not really sure why you copied and quoted my old post zgeezer, with nothing else added after the quote???! Sure it's a simple answer...I'm a Geezer and have major short term memory loss. You may note that I also double posted my answer.... . If I could figure out how to do it, I'd delete one of the new posts. Now where the hell are my keys? g Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 18, 2010 Author Share Posted April 18, 2010 I agree.. I should of paid a shop to do it.. dumb mistake.. its my first car, so another learning experience and lesson learned. I will however be able to use the soda/abrasive blaster for suspension parts and a blast cabinet. so its not a total waste. I found a cheap local source for soda bicarbonate.. harbor freight wanted $39 for a 50 lb bag... I found a place in town that sold me 100 pounds of soda bicarbonate AND 100 pounds of nickel slag 90 grit for rust removal for $55 after taxes!! What a deal!!! 200 pounds for $55?! sold!! =) All of the sand Home Depot sells (quickrete)states on the bag and instructions DO NOT use for sand blasting.. silicosis anyone?! The nickel slag seems pretty sweet for the rust removal.. its also called the "green diamond" and less then 1% silica Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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