Sandblasting advice sought

[DiverRay]

If you have a Harbor Freight close, you can buy media from them. again, not cheap, but it works. I try and use a backstop if I use expensive media. You can sometimes re-use the media if you keep it dry.

[Cobia]

Went to Harbor Freight to buy the hopper, gloves, small tarp for backstop and recycling, and face shield. The price of the media, crushed glass beads = $45 for 50lbs...... too pricey for me.
The manager suggested I go to Home Depot and buy a bag of play sand and use that...... $3.50 for 50lbs bag. Low buck solution I like.
Then I stop by my local bike shop and ask my bud what he uses. He said he uses silica and remided me I could have gone to the beach and gotten a couple of buckets of sand for free!!!!!
Well, free it is, but way too coarse for my purpose. He acknowledged that fact.
Found out after buying it that the play sand is sifted and WASHED!! It is humid!!! Lucky that tonight will be the coldest and driest night of the season so I cut the bag open to let the moisture evaporate.
We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'll keep you posted.

[crazy steve]

Went to Harbor Freight to buy the hopper, gloves, small tarp for backstop and recycling, and face shield. The price of the media, crushed glass beads = $45 for 50lbs...... too pricey for me.
The manager suggested I go to Home Depot and buy a bag of play sand and use that...... $3.50 for 50lbs bag. Low buck solution I like...

Hate to rain on your parade, but I don't think you'll be too happy with the 'play sand'. I tried that recently (to do a few bigger items that wouldn't fit in my blast cabinet filled with the 'good stuff'), and there's some pretty big chunks in that too. It continually clogged the blaster, and I ended up running all of it through a window screen. That helped some, but sure didn't make the process very fast...

Back in the day (I bought my first 'home' sandblaster in '75), you used to be able to get 'good' sand at the building supply places. If I remember right, it was used for mixing brick grout; you might check at a masonry supply. The 'sandbox' sand sucked...

[Ken Talbot]

Did the blasting myself, had the powdercoating done in a shop. Had a bit of a medical misadventure about the time I started on reassembly, and "lost momentum" on gettin it done. Still mostly in rubbermaid containers...

[Cobia]

Ken,
Sorry about your medical misadventure, and that the black beauty is still in tubs. Maybe we can motivate you, with the help of xsessives nearby, to put it together......I hope.
Steve,
I hope not to find too many clouds in this parade. Sifting it into a wheelbarrow, although a PITA, would not really constitute a major drawback.
The bag says it has been sifted already... We'll see. Hell, I may just go down to the beach and get a couple 5 gal. buckets of sand.
I thought you were going to say that it's too coarse or such.

[petejw]

+1
on ur medical condition Ken,
i hope u do get that bike put back together,
that will certainly be one nice looking machine.

[crazy steve]

...I hope not to find too many clouds in this parade. Sifting it into a wheelbarrow, although a PITA, would not really constitute a major drawback.
The bag says it has been sifted already... We'll see. Hell, I may just go down to the beach and get a couple 5 gal. buckets of sand.
I thought you were going to say that it's too coarse or such.

Oh, it's been sifted, but they used a pretty coarse screen; I've seen beach sand that had less big stuff in it. About 80% of the bags I bought were fine... it was the sifting out of that 20% that took time. I got enough out of two bags to fill a medium size pothole in my driveway...

[Cobia]

Well, today I removed the engine form the frame and took it to the boat lot, along with the frame, for sandblasting. That's where we have the compressor.
Although kind of wet, the playsand was great, fine enough so as to not pit too much. I blasted the peg perches to test the system and I'm very pleased with the results, pretty much the same as Ken's parts in the pictures. I'm very satisfied. I tried the media on a few small areas of the engine and I think it's going to be OK for painting.
The only problem is that this 'washed' sand takes a while to dry, wonder how much weight the water ads to the total weight of the bag?
Anyway, I've put it in a wheelbarrow and turn it over once in a while to accelerate the drying, glad we're having a cold dry spell around here.
I think this is going to be a very good alternative to wire brushing with a drill to remove the oxidation.
Pics will follow.

[ecoviper9]

speaking of sandblasting.. i was recently looking at picking up a sand blaster and im a little lost as to which one to get... which ones do you guys use / find to be the best?

[ViperRon]

They sell blasting material at Harbor Freight at pretty cheap prices comparably. I got some 70 grit but I do not recommend using it on soft aluminum case covers forks etc if you are going to polish them. They also sell a small hand held blaster that attaches to air hose it has adjustable flow and holds a little over a pint of material pretty cheap and with good abrasive does well. I do not recommend using the play sand and if you do make sure and screen it and it has to be dry or the feed problems from the bin will be continuous. The play sand will more than double the time and material used for the same job. Any grit will eat away material and leave a surface that takes a lot of time to take back to a polish state. It’s much better on any part that you are going to polish to use the plastic beads or shells. I used 25 LB of the 70 git to blast the main engine case, the frame, rotors, calipers, front master, cylinder head, and cylinder and still had some left over. I tried play sand and it just took too long to get anything done. If you are just removing old paint and or clear coat paint removers and other methods in the refinishing section leave a much better surface to polish. Using remover first loosens paint and if allowed to dry reduces the amount of time and effort in blasting. Use a mask, ear plugs, and good goggles or sheild the fine grit can bounce and penetrate your eyes not to mention what it can do to lungs. In the exaust and intake ports I would use some WD 40 and wet some high quality paper towels and put them in there and then use another outside covering for dual protection. All ports like crankcase breather get a good rubber plug and tape over it. The rubber seals arround areas like the shaft drive do not offer enough protection I recomend dissasembly and good cleaning afterward. Be careful of the angle in blasting as high pressure can cut threw a gasket. Much of this information is too late for you Cobia as you have got most of your stuff but you may still switch to the blast material as I did and others following your post will have the info to go by.

[kwats]

I have a pressure sand blaster with 100# tank and a small soda blaster. The soda blaster works very well on oxidized aluminum. My '79 Special sat for over 30 years in a damp garage from the PO.

The engine was quite corroded..



After about a half hour of blasting with coarse soda...

[WSL91]

That's quite an undertaking to freshen up the frame. I admire your interest in restoring the bike.