Media blaster?

[Nathan Schulte]

So, those of you that were at the space Monday evening may have noticed
one of the projects I'm working on. For those that didn't, I'm doing
some automotive work on my car; specifically, doing some work on the
intake of my engine (a Honda 2.2L F22A1, if anyone is interested).

Anyway, a lot of the aluminum is pretty dirty with oil, carbon, dirt and
grime. I've cleaned it up with some industrial degreaser, but that
doesn't do well enough. I purchased some etching mag wheel cleaner
(acid based aluminum wheel cleaner) and preliminary results suggest it
might not work so well either (or it might just take a few repetitions,
we'll see).

That all got me thinking, how difficult is a DIY media blaster? It
turns out, there's an ultra-cheap, environmentally friendly, DIY media
blaster solution using baking sodas. Here's some visuals for reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEGXwLUH24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd8yqFJkn6A

I think I'm going to whip this up if there's nothing already available
at the space. What does everyone think?

Also, I'm now a basic member with recurring monthly payments. Yay!

--
Nate

[David Knaack]

You have good timing, I was just thinking today that I need to come up with a way to build a cabinet for my media blasting gun. However, if I can use baking soda, there isn't that much reason to have to reuse or clean up, soda is cheap, safe, and rinses away clean.

Assembly of this DIY gun would be a great quick how-to presentation for a meeting.

[Marc M]

I was just pricing out media blasters last night...lol

[Nathan Schulte]

Any chance I could use your gun this weekend? Do you have any photos
I could look at?

I tried building my own gun following the directions in that video,
and it worked decently well. The vinyl tubing I used was too large
diameter though, so the soda didn't feed very well, and the air
compressor I used was only a 4 gallon tank. Further, the compressor
hasn't been maintained very well at all, and was full of water,
clogging with the soda in the nozzle.

Other than those issues, when it worked, it seemed to work very well!
I would like to use a better setup though if that's available.

--
Nate

On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 12:24 AM, David Knaack <david...@gmail.com> wrote:

[David Knaack]

See attached, it's just your basic media gun. I've been using it with play sand, which is slightly too coarse and heavy, so I have a short hose on it right now. I'll have to put the water trap on the compressor and give it a try.

I've got too much to do tomorrow to come down, but I can probably do sunday.