dustless blasting

Last I checked all body paint and rust stripping styles are a mess afterwards to clean up? Maybe I'm missing something that there is a system that sucks up the debri as you strip? lol

anyways my personal experience
The wet strip has been pricey when I checked twice, and as above mentioned the guy wasn't much on wanting to doing it?

So, I'm like hell I'll purchase my own personal use one thats smaller, I got excited about doing this, was pretty fired up on this, I got a quote on the dustless machinery and laughed so hard, threw the quote in the trash. Wow, I could purchase a paint booth plus build and enclose a car port for media blasting for what they asked for their machines.. It sucked and I hate when things suck

So far it's been to expensive to try it and the entrepreneurs' don't seem to want the business from my experience. I don't know how well this design would work becuse I'v tried to pay someone or buy it to see and The big man upstairs keeps it from happening and I'll have to expect he is saving me financially from something disatrius?

It does create a mess, but not as much as you think. it can simply be washed away. I wouldnt have a problem doing this in my driveway.

They are expensive, but from what i was told they arent for the casual do-it your selfers. These are for industry, doing large boats, and equipment. Businesses eat this stuff up because it doesn't require special breathing equipment and OSHA standards.

I've contacted people locally to get this done, and prices range from 700-1200 dollars to do the entire car. Thats including media and anti-rust, which is about 400 dollars, and diesel for the machine. The labor part is just about 5 hours of blasting on their end. The real labor is getting everything back and prepping, I spent way more time blowing all the media out of the nooks and crannies and prepping the metal for epoxy.

I still say this is the best way to take a car down. Ive tried them all.

I hope this helps someone looking to do this, as I was on the fence until my friend came through with letting me use the machine.
 
i can warp 12g steel with 30 lbs of pressure .
Im completely new to this, did hood, doors, trunk lid, front upper and lower panels, didnt warp anything. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about warping metal. I dont see how its even possible with the tip i used and the pressure.
 
I see guys at a collision shop have a guy come in and do this. I cannot understand how they are allowed to just flush all this water and glass down the storm sewers. Thats why they do it on your property. If you bring it in an industrial area with any type of sanitary district, where you are forced to keep process water out of storm drains, they would shut me down.
 
I see guys at a collision shop have a guy come in and do this. I cannot understand how they are allowed to just flush all this water and glass down the storm sewers. Thats why they do it on your property. If you bring it in an industrial area with any type of sanitary district, where you are forced to keep process water out of storm drains, they would shut me down.
I dont know the rules on that, personally its just glass, I cant see it being an issue. But I dont know. I know one thing, its a hell of a lot better than disposing of chemical strippers.
 
i had something done once with the wet method. just my opinion but i would never do it again. it is hands down the sloppiest thing i have ever had done here. it was just endless amounts of glass/water mud everywhere. the cleanup of the part sucked since the glass was all stuck together. if its dry you can just blow off the glass and dust. with this its caked and stuck in every crevice imaginable. i just dont see the advantage. blasting with the same glass media dry is way faster when you start including cleanup time.
 
It does cake, and is a pain to get out if caked. My understanding the benefit is the dustless part. Your not breathing that stuff.
 
I looked at buying one years ago. The mess and cold winters pushed me away. I'll clean dust over mud anyday.

I also believe if you blasting at 90psi sooner or later your going to run into trouble. I usually run all my sheet metal at 30-40psi and hard parts are 100psi. Also the "glass" your washing down the drain is mixed with leaded paint and such.

I just couldn't imagine trying to get the sludge out trunk corners or rocker panels.
 
I dry blast the floors,trunk,firewall,jambs.Then roll it on the rotisserie and blow it out/vacuum many times.I hand strip the hood,trunk lid and roof.I only use the wet blaster for doors,quarters and fenders.

What I do then is pour in holdtite with water only in the blaster and wash the car inside and out several times.That gets the non critical parts clean enough.

Then I wash the outside body with soapy water and a plastic bristle brush.I rinse it off with distilled water followed by isopropyl alcohol in a garden sprayer.

I dry it with a Milwaukee electric leaf blower.Let it sit overnight,tack it off next day and epoxy it.
 
I have only used dutless blasting once but was really pleased with it. The blaster did his best to wash the media out of the braces with straight water at the end and suggested I set the fenders in the sun for a while when I got home to let the dry well. Then he recomended I blow them out good and epoxy.

I did all of the above, went over them with 80 on a DA and epoxied. Other than the cost I was very pleased and would not hesitate to take him more work.

BTW, he did the work at his location. He will accumulate work until he has a full day's worth and then run them. That saved me the mess as well as having to pay for the travel time or minimum charge. He was indeed very accomidating and good to do business with.

John
 
I dont know the rules on that, personally its just glass, I cant see it being an issue. But I dont know. I know one thing, its a hell of a lot better than disposing of chemical strippers.
There are even regulations to dispose of aluminum oxide sand in IL., dont know about other places. As far as running it down the drain, storm drains are bad for clogging since there is never a constant stream of water. You look at the cake in the cars and consider all that is going to cake in the drains and eventually cause a problem. I get the its just glass so I can throw it in my dumpster, like coal slag, but eventually you figure something is gonna stop this.
 
when my media is worn out i just spread it out back in low areas . i usually get around 8 cycles out of it .
 
I wish I could find somebody around here that could do a car body without warping it. Used a regular sandblasting company for years without a problem then they warped a 66 charger body so bad it was mostly unusable. Then tried 2 different dustless blasters. I told both of them they could do them dry because I wasn't concerned about the dust as much as the mess(had already heard from another restorer) and expressed my concern with warpage. Both said they had never had a problem, and proceeded to warp 2 Ford pickups, bad. Needless to say after spending a couple weeks on each trying to salvage what I could, I no longer trust blasters around here. It is faster to strip it myself with a razor blade or 8" 80 grit on my makita than spend 60 to 80 hours trying to fix warped sheetmetal. If anyone knows of someone around the Houston area that knows what they are doing, I am willing to give them a chance, but probably would be on a scrap panel first!
 
blasting is like anything else . you need experience and knowledge . i get calls all the time from people who have destroyed sheet metal from some mobile dustless blaster. my media supplier sells the rigs on trailers. people buy them and then 6 months later are selling it back after destroying cars and getting sued. there are a few times i have to pass on blasting something. . huge flat hoods with heavy rust is one of them. best to go another route on them . to reduce the chance of warping i use a finer media that has less chance of peening the surface.
 
I have a 67 Plymouth Barracuda notchback that I put on a rotisserie and had dustless blasted outside. I had no issues what so ever. The only thing I would do different is had the guy spend more time washing the car after blasting. The force of the water helped carry a lot of the media away. Had some cake up in the rear quarters. I should have just spent another 20 minutes with the water blast and it would have been very clean. Yes it’s messy. So is sanding and using chem stripper. Pick your poison so to speak. The best part was the blaster came to me and I didn’t have to trailer the car and rotisserie somewhere. That was a big time and hassle saver for me. My garage is in the boonies so the media blends in well with the gravel road. Leftover media was also good for traction on snow and ice.
 
I contacted the dustless blasting company recently about suggestions on taping off the vehicle so I dont get media in certain places, they were very helpful. I mentioned about folks talking about warping, and they pointed me to instructional videos online and referenced me to people who do cars in the area i live for pointers. I gotta say, my experience has been almost 100% positive.

One thing to point out, the rig Im using is setup for multiple purposes. The spanned tip, the pressure, the type of glass im using, all have an impact on the results. If you have someone come blast, do your homework and make sure they know what they are doing. I did all the blasting myself, so I was able to control the outcome better, thats not always the case having someone else doing the work.
 
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What sort of prep must be done prior to SPI epoxy after dustless blasting? I understand there is about 72hrs prior to rust (probably less here in FL) so what must be done before shooting primer? Thanks in advance!
 
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