Help with sandblasting rims

[nattybumppo]

Does anybody have a sandblaster set-up who would be willing to let me try it out on 5 steel rims I want to strip this weekend? Friday or Saturday late afternoon or evening wouyld be great if possible. Blast Tech is cost prohibitive for this small project, and I want to see if I want to tackle my 40 body down the road myself anyway, or if it is a better choice to farm this task out to the professionals.

 

[wesintl]

I dunno, i've rented a giant diesel compressor and a 100 gal pot with a 1200lbs of black magic and it sucked. I'd never do it again. I have a little home sand blaster and it takes a while. I've tried doing a rim and it just took forever. IMHO i'd call around and pay the $. sand blasting is a suck job

 

[Corbet]

I used a little crappy blaster on my 40 a few times. Agree its a suck job. I'd pay personally

 

[rover67]

I have a small one and i'll only do small peices. Doing big stuff kinda sucks and you go through a ton of sand, and get it everywhere. takes days to wash it off.

It'd be brutal to do 5 wheels...

anyways, I've used this guy for ROUGH stuff like wheels. he's really cheap and will get to it quick if he's there. Nice guy, kinda kooky.

http://www.leutholdsandblasting.com/

I wouldn't trust him with anything sheet metal or aluminum, he uses play sand and dosen't even screen it. For steel wheels I'd bet it'd be just fine. He has a BIG deisel compressor and pressure pot and just does it behind his warehouse. I think mostly he does bridges and stuff. I took him a valve cover and he blasted it for free. He was doing wheels when I stopped by. He wouldn't even let me give him $20.

anyways, worth a shot.

otherwise give powdercoating specialties in golden a call. they've blasted more delicate stuff for me and can probably quote your wheels to be blasted over the phone. They just blasted and coated my bike frame recently and it turned out really nice.

 

[ttubb]

Protection

Sand/media blasting can be very dangerous to your lungs. You should really have a quality cartidge beather, not a dust mask.

x2 on having the pros do it. T

 

[Hulk]

I have a Harbor Freight sand blaster with a big bucket of the really fine sand. I'll sell you the whole setup for $50.

 

[TIMZTOY]

I've got a 40lb pressure blaster that you can borrow. It's got sand in it. I've used it to sand blast my frame on my 89 taco and it was fine I did it in the garage with the door only open about a foot so that the sand didn't escape. You defentlly need a good respirator. Not a mask. And some good full face goggles the crappy hood thing it came with I threw away. Because you couldn't see crap and it still let sand into your hair. You'll aslo need a good set of gloves. And ample suplly of air. I was using a small 20 gallon compressor and it took forever. Could only get like 2-5 minutes of blasting then had to stop to let the ait build up.

For your rims just snag a tarp or canvas and make a large funnle/work area to sorround you that way you don't waste much sand. Then the sand will just collect at the bottom. The. Just sift the sand through a screen ( I used a window screen) and refill the pressure blaster. I only had to refill the blaster once. And recovered about 80% of the sand