soda blasting

shine

shine

Member
since there is a holy grail thread somewhere else i thought i would bring this up. of all the things said about it the one thing never mentioned is the MOH hardness.
soda is 2.5 . my acrylic is 3.0 ,cornstarch is 2.5 , corn cob is 2.5 - 3.0 , walnut is 3.0 . something like star blast is around 7+ .
so equal damage can be done with any of them . the one difference is what is left behind. it has been claimed on another thread that soda is the only media recommended for fiberglass. not true . when i was researching before spending the money i found that several medias were recommended for glass by my composite supplier . their recommendation was acrylic type1 , cornstarch , corn cob and walnut. they however did advise against soda for fiberglass .they do sell it all. you can back up and hook onto a complete soda rig on a trailer .
since my last barrel of acrylic is getting really worn out i will switch to cornstarch for the fiberglass.

there's way more to all this than the infomercials on these web sites. a call to a good composite supplier will really be an eye opener.
 
I'd like to learn more about this stuff, can you recommend any reading? My local suppliers are pretty much in the dark ages when it comes to blast media. I'm thinking about switching to crushed glass for what I am doing, but so far there are only a few types of media available around here and glass and acrylic are not among them.
 
Aren't some of those medias only really profitable if you have a reclaim system? I don't buy that crap about soda being only recommended for fiberglass.....most of the junk people are selling about soda I don't buy, and I use it. Not all the time, but it does fit well with a lot of things we do. I will agree that most that are using soda, have been sold a bag of goods buy the soda companies.

We actually looked into type 1 (and type 6) acrylic a little while back, off of your recommendations, as an alternative for using soda...but after seing the price per bag and was told to get the most efficiency out of it you would need a reclaim booth, we decided against it. I would still like to try some though If I could get my hands on a bag or 2. Supplier can only get it by the palette.

We've switched to crushed glass and black beauty for abrasive blasting. I hate the black beauty but it does seem to work better on real heavy pitting of some frames and other hard metals. The glass is only used for sheetmetal.
 
i buy by the 250 lb drum. i can cycle acrylic 20 times or more. it just gets finer. cornstarch is good and not as much. walnut , corn cob are also good.

my point is that soda is not the only media that causes no change to surface integrity .
 
I would love to invest in a room for blasting and start using some different media's as well, it's just not in the budget now. Around me all I know of is sand blasters, would probably have to do it myself if I wanted to go another route, not sure where to get the material either.
 
the blast room was not a lot. the 30x40 to put it in was. then the compressor and hopper. i have around 15k in it.
 
when looking for media look to industrial usage . none of it is designed or developed for automotive use. no market.
any media used in electronics is surface integrity safe. soda was big in industrial cleaning . electronics , food processing plants , printing equipment and such. all the acrylics are designed to reclaim. organics are 1 use products. all my research stuff is in an old computer . norton blasting equipment has some info . there is a site that explains all the medias and their use. i'll see if i can find it crash.
 
crash , this site has an ok description on medias. there is another one i found a few years ago that is an industrial supplier. they has a lot of medias i never heard of. they had a plastic for cleaning electronics in aviation. but the organics are really coming on. corn cob and cornstarch/polymer are really interesting. just need a good deal on it. i buy pallet price.

http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/blasting-media/corn-cob.htm
 
I've been wanting to setup my blast booth for a couple years now. Going to add a paint booth, blast booth, and wash rack. I bought a 12 by 30 enclosed booth for blasting in but I have to add onto the shop to arrange things how I want. Until this guy leaves the White House I'm sitting on my money though. I'll keep blasting outside until things look better. I don't reclaim my media and usually use the black blast stuff. It would be nice to use some of the other medias but without a booth I'm surely not going to mess with reclaiming it outside.
 
my blast room is 16x25 and it is tight. i dont think your going to like a 12 wide. that only leaves 3 ft on each side. when you have that hose over your shoulder you would be right against the side and really close to the car . i wish i had done 20x25 .

tip. i catch the small led flashlights on sale at home depot or lowes for less than a dollar then duct tape them to my nozzle. beats a 300 light for it. just another cord to drag around.
 
shine;14768 said:
crash , this site has an ok description on medias. there is another one i found a few years ago that is an industrial supplier. they has a lot of medias i never heard of. they had a plastic for cleaning electronics in aviation. but the organics are really coming on. corn cob and cornstarch/polymer are really interesting. just need a good deal on it. i buy pallet price.

http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/blasting-media/corn-cob.htm
Click to expand...

That's good info, thanks. What do you think is the most economical and aggressive media for a non-recycling system? We've been using Green Diamond but my helper doesn't like it much, he would rather go back to silica even after being taught the health risks.

Here's a site that shows Green Diamond:

http://www.clemtex.com/abrasives/abrasivemedia/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top