Sandblasting A Frame-questions???

ok, i need to sandblast this frame i have that i will be swapping my jeep over to when it is ready. i live in san diego area nearby cities are: el cajon, santee, and lakeside. these cities are offroad capitals of u.s.a. (as far as bikes, buggies, pre-runners, and trophy trucks). so i am calling dozens of places about sandblasting a frame for me, and half the sandblasting businesses i'm calling are GD damn retards and talking to me like i am crazy for doing this and they have never heard of it. a couple have given me quotes of $2-300 (but not sure), one said 1-2hrs @ $80/hr, and another said $325 to blast and powder coat (and when i told him i don't want to powdercoat, he treats me like i'm the idiot!)...


so i was going to do the job myself, but my friend said i'll probably cook my air compressor doing the job as it requires so much air, and it would take forever because i would need to keep waiting for compressor to catch up.

i have a 150 psi husky 26 gallon compressor...not a giant proffesional shop unit, but more than enough for my average/everyday use.

those of you that have sand blasted, what did you use for blaster unit? compressor? etc?
should i just do this myself or pay what i feel is an arm and 2 legs to have it done? i pretty much HATE everyone that i have called and spoke to so far, so if i don't need to use their services, i would like to avoid them.

thanks for the help

 

It does take quite a bit of air to blast. What are you going to use for a sandblast unit? If you've never done this before, you might spend as much money setting up to do the job, as paying someone else to do it for you. Personal protection is important, too. You also need a place to do it. It makes a mess.
Your compressor might be able to operate a small, syphon fed unit, but they take forever to get the job done. I would probably search for a shop that you feel comfortable with, and for $300.00 let them do it. Good luck!

 

I spent $150 2 1/2 years ago, it took them about 2 hours total!!

 

Nobody sandblasts anymore - it's now "media blasting." Airborne silica is too dangerous. For heavy work, they use blast slag or powdered iron ore (magnetite).

I think the guy who thought you were nuts wondered why you would bother if you weren't going to make it look pretty. If you want to clean up the surface rust, I'd suggest you go over the frame with a wire wheel or a flap wheel, and then use a rust encapsulating paint like Eastwood, POR-15 or Rust Bullet. No need to bring it down to bare metal if you're going to paint it. JMO.

hth!

 

We used a 50-60 gallon compressor and it did take forever. Even with a respirator I was blowing crap out of my nose for a week. I agree with Tim here, use a wire wheel on the whole thing and POR15 it.

 

Check with the monument place, yhe ones that do headstones, I have a guy here in Albuquerque that does it for about $90. hour.

Andrew

 

Ha! I just got back from my garage sandblasting my windshield and tailgate. So I can offer first hand experience hot of the plate. Go with the $300 sandblast.

I only use my setup for small stuff and even then it is painful. This is using a small siphon feed with a 26 gallon compressor. It took ~2 hours to do just the parts of the windshield and tailgate that I can't easily get with an orbital sander. It took another 1/2 hour to get cleaned up.

I have a 60 gallon 3.7HP compressor at the garage at my house and even it says that it is only rated for intermittent sandblasting use. If your compressor can't put out a good consistent pressure the beads will not have enough force to clean up the surface well. Especially if the frame has oil and grease on it.

BTW if you do blast, don't use silica sand, it's not good for the lungs. Menards sells Black Beauty blasting media for $6 a 50lb bag and its safe.

Good luck!

 

$90?! Sorry to hear that Andrew...
Willie's off getting blasted right now at $65

I agree, for the price of machines, take it to someone. Also, if I had known, I'd have powder coated mine over paint... JMO.

 

If you are still considering having someone else do your frame . . .
I just talked with RW Little on Pacific Hwy (Just north of Lindberg Field). They say shouldn't be more than $200 to sand blast your frame (they gave the typical "we'll give you a better estimate once we see it). I've used them for couple of projects in the past and have always been happy with their service.

 

that's funny... i called a few places who said they wouldn't do it, they all said use rwlittle. i called and he told me $150, and 1.5 weeks. i gawked at the time and told him i thought it would be about a day, then he told me if i scheduled it with him he would have it in and out in less than 2 hrs.

i may go with him. someone else here says to just wire wheel the rust off and encapsulate all the rust...i may do that, but i feel like to do the job right i should get it down to the metal and build it up from there. we'll see. i am still leaning towards having it blasted.

thanks all for the great info and help.

 

Dry blasting with silica is illegal in most residential areas for obvious reasons. Even industrial applications call for wet blasting. That's with a small amount of water fed at the nozzle into the media stream to keep the dust down regardless of media used, then prime with a product used over mild rust.
Get together with a couple guys with projects and rent a gas compressor and share the cost of the rental then prime the parts at the same time.

 

What about needle scaling? Anybody use this?
http://www.tptools.com/Product.aspx?display_id=2573

 

No one has mentioned a wet blaster, I saw one used on Extreme 4WD about a year ago, They used a high pressure washer and a washer wand with a pick up tube by the nozzle they stuck into bags of construction sand.They used 2 bags of sand to blast a frame.The frame wasnt 100% bare metal but was more than clean enoufh for paint. The advantage is the much lower equipment cost, about $150 for the wand if you already have the pressure washer, and there is no dust because of the water. The power washer was a 3200 PSI unit. I have never tried it myself.

 

What about needle scaling? Anybody use this?

I saw these used all the time back when I worked in the oilfields.
They used these to clean Drilling Rigs prior to painting. They worked well but my concern is air consumption, The link doesn't state the air requirements and my guess is they would take a pretty good size compressor.

 

LarryD, that kind of wet blasting is a good option. It's different than a dry blast rig set up for wet blasting in that media is siphoned into the pressurized water stream, usually a finer grit like 60 or higher. The other set up injects water into dry media stream. Both methods can have a rust redardant introduced to minimize oxidation. Both methods reduce dust and richocet and clean tight spots pretty well.

 

Anybody got a link to one of the pressure washer sandblaster attachment thingies?

I have a fairly big pressure washer and I want to try it. But the reviews I've seen on them is they don't work well.

Any links would help......