Sand blasting Q???

[Zorm]

Ok, finally have my booth built, cool, large enough to blast a fender or inner fender.

Have a 30 gal pressurized sand blaster, Harbor Freight I believe, I picked it up off on CL for $35.00
Saw on a form that someone said the Black Diamond stuff from “Tractor supply” was great stuff. Found a TS and picked up about 100 lbs. ($14.00, not bad)
The guy I bought the blaster off of had soda in it and did not use the moisture separator, so it all got caked inside. I finally cleaned it out, all but a small amount, put some of the Black Diamond stuff in (I got the 20/40 grit) and pressurized the tank, I think I have the plumbing down ok, go to open the valve for blasting and nothing out of the gun.

Finally figured I had too small of a tip in the end. Went and got larger tips, I have tried 1/8 tips for the nozzle that came with the blaster, and 3.5 mm tip that came with a “dead man’s release” blasting handle from Harbor Freight. Still, nothing out of the gun. Do I still need even larger tips?

Just to make sure on the pluming for the blaster. I have air in via a water separator into a ball valve into the top of the tank. Once that gets up to about 70psi, I close the ball valve to the top of the tank, cut off the air to the tank, open the valve for the bottom of the tank, then open either the valve or dead man’s trigger and should be blasting, but no.

Help greatly appreciated

[67mann]

This article just re-confirms that the two processes(sand and soda)are not made for the same equipment....
http://www.ehow.com/how_7201201_convert ... aster.html

That be said....did you thoroughly go through the bottom plumbing,because if the PO switched it to soda(or if it's a soda blaster)and your trying to run a heavy abrasive like that ......it ain't gonna happen

[Zorm]

This blaster was not made for soda. I removed all the plumbing, especially from the bottom and found that packed solid when I first got the blaster. Its all clean now.

[whiteblur]

That Black Diamond media is very think stuff. You may not be able to spray it due to that fact. We have an industrial size booth and have trouble with that stuff clogging up in the lines. It sprays few secs pulsates, stops, then sprays again over and over. I took my doors to get plastic bead blasted and they have the industrial size blasting set up with hoppers and all (fulll 9 yards). That plastic bead is even too much for their set up so they do a 50/50 mix of bead and dust. They recollect the let overs, it filters, the heavy bead goes to the bottom of the separator and the lighter stuff goes to the trash tank. From there they get the dust and mix it 50/50.