The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: Bomber on September 27, 2005, 04:19:49 am
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My cab is nearly complete. Today the control panel was due to get dropped off for powder coating. Yesterday I had hacked away trying to remove the red paint without much success. Tried belt grinder, orbital sander, angle grinder (last resort). After much swearing and thinking we knocked up a little bucket of sand and an airgun to see how sandblasting would work. You can see in these picks the crappy job the power tools did, and also two small patches we sandblasted.
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Took the CP to the powdercoaters only to find out they don't do sandblasting!! They have chemical compunds to remove paint but nothing that can touch this sucker. This paint was NOT meant to come off.
So what to do? Build your own sandblasting enclosure of course ;D
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The best thing is it didn't cost a cent! Cardboard, left-over polycarbonate, some tape and some imagination...
The top angled sections each have a window - the front one to look through, the back one is just for light. There is a hoe in the back to wedge a vaccujm cleaner tube into, another hole on the right for the tube connecting the airgun to the aircompressor and the two larger holes on the front are for putting gloved hands through (think Homer Simpson ;))
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You can see a small 'well' in the back-right corner. This is where the sand sits. The level above it is just a horizontal sheet of polycarbonate to rest whatever it is you are sandblasting on. The red tube sucks the sand from the well and fires it out of the airgun. If the sand level gets low, you just take a breather and sweep from the 'shelf' back into the well.
Not quite there yet - but you can see how well it worked! Maybe a better use of cardboard than junkade? :D
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Wow! Way to take control of the situation! It's very cool when you can take existing supplies and put them together in a way that perfectly solves your problem. Great job.
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That is awesome. Please provide more details on the compressor and such...
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How powerful does the air compressor need to be for sand blasting? What's the minimum SCFM & PSI?
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How does one convince the air compressor to suck sand through the hose? I'm very interested, but have limited experience with this.
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How does one convince the air compressor to suck sand through the hose?
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Yeah, but I'm missing part of the equation. The hose is directly connected to the compressor, with no way for the sand to get into it... what don't I see?
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Yeah, but I'm missing part of the equation.
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Yeah what Hatrick said.
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Now I get it. Thanks. What is the vacuum for?
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that's so that the wife won't scream about Bomber getting sand all over the floor. ;D
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;D
Good call.
I wonder if a powerwasher would work as well. I do have one of those.
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Thanks for all the feedback. It's working a treat - another 20 mins or so and should be all done.
How powerful does the air compressor need to be for sand blasting?
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that's so that the wife won't scream about Bomber getting sand all over the floor.
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Its a silica sand so it crumbles when it contacts anything and kicks out a hell of a lot of dust.
Isn't blasting with silica sand very unhealthy? I read something about Silicosis (a disabling, nonreversible and sometimes fatal lung disease)
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Just had a look - the compressor is a 50L capacity with 3HP. Its running at around 100PSI.
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Its a silica sand so it crumbles when it contacts anything and kicks out a hell of a lot of dust.
Isn't blasting with silica sand very unhealthy?
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WHat kind of "gun" do you need for sandblasting? I have a compressor and an auto-sprayer as well as other misc. wood working tools....but sand blaster...... mmmmm.
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A couple of my mates have made a similar enclosure...I used it for sandblasting my coin door.
Their one is made fully of perspex (plexi), with rubber sections to put your hands through. Their gun has a screw on container for the same tho, and you have to scrape up the same every so often to refill the container. Also they have a vaccum cleaner pipe going into the top of the enclosure to remove some of the fumes/dust.
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Sounds like the deluxe version Minwah :)
This has worked so well (I'll have some photos of the finished product soon) we will probably make an upgraded version.
The biggest hassle we have found is that a little bit of moisture gets into the gun so needs to be pulled apart and cleaned.
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Well its finished. It took a whole lot longer than I expected, but the results were great. The paint was incredibly think and almost baked on. Its right back to bare metal now.
I didn't have my camera on me and had to hurry it off to the powdercoaters. So no photos - I know how much you all love photos so sorry 'bout that...