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Old sandblasting cabinet refresh/mods

WESTOF7

WESTOF7

Fueled by hate and boric acid
Joined
Aug 6, 2020
Member Number
2422
Messages
220
Loc
Frozen Wasteland
Bought myself a junk reclaimer style sandblast cabinet at auction for $100. Figured it was cheaper than building or modifying a flimsy Chinese one. Date on the motor is 1953. It's Canadian made by a company still in business and local to me so I thought that was kinda cool.

Made of 3/16 steel. Everything rubber was rotted. Motor trips the breaker without even attempting to start.

Had mice living in it and the sand in the reclaimer was a straight up biohazard :barf: suction hose was full of water :barf:
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Good luck. Place I worked had an old clapped blast cabinet like that, they jerry rigged a shop vac to it to pull the dust, and every so often we shoveled out the booth back into the reclaimer because it didn't work worth fuck.

I assume you're smarter than the fucks who cobbled that together, so I hope you have better luck :flipoff2:

Lights as stated help a ton
 
posford said:
Fuck that, I wouldn't want the grit beating the shit out of an expensive setup. Cheap shit shop vac is a consumable :flipoff2:
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:confused:

Not much to beat up in a most collectors. They're just a metal impeller in a metal casing.
 
arse_sidewards said:
:confused:

Not much to beat up in a most collectors. They're just a metal impeller in a metal casing.
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You don't think the grit would wind up eroding the impeller and casing? You'd be surprised how much that shop vac pulled out
 
arse_sidewards said:
Fill literally the entire ceiling of that bitch with LED tube lights. You want that MFER to glow from across the room.

Seriously. I'm not joking. Best thing I ever did to my POS cabinet.
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No Joke, working in a dim cabinet sucks. Light that thing up. I've lined my with stick on LED strips and they have held up OK so far. Still have some concern able the adhesive failing, but they have been stuck for a few years now. Have to wipe them down every once in a while to remove grime and get some of the brightness back.

Other suggestions - seal that thing up will unless you like dust everywhere and if you are concerned about dust collectors/shop vacs, pop in a dust deputy or similar to help pull the abrasive out of the exhaust. Will still have a lot of fine dust make it thru, so good filters on the shop vac are a must.
 
posford said:
You don't think the grit would wind up eroding the impeller and casing? You'd be surprised how much that shop vac pulled out
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Oh, I'm well aware how much shit gets spewed out over time. It all winds up on my lawn. :laughing:

I'm sure it'll eat the impeller eventually but I just can't see it doing it in my lifetime especially with infrequent use.

I figure the dust collector will last an order of magnitude longer than it takes to wear out the back wall of a 18ga Chinese sand blasting cabinet and that'll probably take decades at my current usage level. I've never seen someone wear out out in a home shop.
 
Cleaned out all the mice nests :barf: and hit the inside with my pressure washer blaster attachment with the burner on for a good 20 min. It was pretty nasty.

Installed some led bulbs I had laying around. Probably going to get some of those Led shop lights for the 2 screw in sockets it has then add led strip lights.

Bought a cheap siphon feed abrasive blasting gun from princess auto. Sku 6320360, cheap Amazon blasting cabinet gloves and 100lbs of crushed recycled glass

Hooked up shop air to it and repaired the lines for the gun. Regulator works so that's a bonus. Water seperator leaks a bit but I think it's just a o ring.

Blasted a aluminum hub for new service truck project. Worked better than expected.

the gun is adequate but I think I'm going to upgrade it right away and return this one.
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HF sells this collector for $150. I bought one 4 or 5 years ago and still haven't managed to get it set up. :shaking: From what I recall, I picked it up at the time because it had some pretty good reviews from members on the old site.

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I have an older snap-on cabinet that I got for a steal. It has a simple fan dust collector that dumps in to a fabric bag that hangs off the back of the machine. It DOES pick up quite a bit of dust, but also leaks a fair bit and I'm sure the HF one will be better.
 
I just did the same to one I had. I built a metering valve out of 3/4" pipe fittings and hooked a foot valve for the air. It works very well. way better than a suction style ever worked for me.

I got a Walmart colander to filter the media after it starts clogging up.
 
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You got any use for these? Shit I was saving off my old sand blaster in case my new one needs it but I barely use the new one.
 
4Eyedturd said:
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You got any use for these? Shit I was saving off my old sand blaster in case my new one needs it but I barely use the new one.
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Yeah sure. I just bought a wicked nice ANI(Italian) suction style gun with a trigger but the pedal and metering valve is probably better

Dm sent
 
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Tried out this ANI Italian suction blasting gun. It's not much better.

I ordered a baldor motor for the reclaimer
 
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Got a local glass company to cut me some new glass and cut me a new piece of seal.

$125 fucking dollars each for some fancy laminated safety glass
 
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Started using 80 grit aluminum oxide due to the crushed glass breaking down too fast.

Had to use the cabinet a bit this weekend for some truck parts. Hole sawed a hole in the cabinet and hooked a $150 shop vac up to help with the dust.

The main issue I'm having now is the viewing window getting covered in dust.
 
bgaidan said:
HF sells this collector for $150. I bought one 4 or 5 years ago and still haven't managed to get it set up. :shaking: From what I recall, I picked it up at the time because it had some pretty good reviews from members on the old site.

1691529430229.png



I have an older snap-on cabinet that I got for a steal. It has a simple fan dust collector that dumps in to a fabric bag that hangs off the back of the machine. It DOES pick up quite a bit of dust, but also leaks a fair bit and I'm sure the HF one will be better.
Click to expand...
I have one of those I picked up on ebay...made the plumbing out of 2" ABS and duct tape. works pretty good.

I put a 2" ball valve in the side of the cabinet and keep closing it at the filter get clogged to keep a bit of vacuum (but not too much) in the cabinet...Dunno if that's correct or not but it works. I'd recommend that unit.
 
M92PV4U said:
Add a fresh air circuit that blasts air across the window?
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Yeah I'm probably going to do that

Can't decide exactly how I want to do it. Kinda want to have it on a foot pedal. Haven't decided how I want the nozzle to look either.

Thinking it might need a bigger viewing window too.
 
WESTOF7 said:
Yeah I'm probably going to do that

Can't decide exactly how I want to do it. Kinda want to have it on a foot pedal. Haven't decided how I want the nozzle to look either.

Thinking it might need a bigger viewing window too.
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I was thinking of blowing air across the window continuously, then blasting air when you need to.
 
posford said:
Add a regular blow gun inside the cabinet to blow the sand off
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WESTOF7 said:
Started using 80 grit aluminum oxide due to the crushed glass breaking down too fast.

Had to use the cabinet a bit this weekend for some truck parts. Hole sawed a hole in the cabinet and hooked a $150 shop vac up to help with the dust.

The main issue I'm having now is the viewing window getting covered in dust.
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Posford has Your answer. Old job had one for cleaning the window and blowing off stuff you were blasting.
You will find yourself blasting EVERYTHING now. Atleast that’s how it was at my old job😄
 
WESTOF7 said:
20230902_113130.jpg


Got a local glass company to cut me some new glass and cut me a new piece of seal.

$125 fucking dollars each for some fancy laminated safety glass
Click to expand...
I wanna try some really fine screen on mine
figure it'll leak some dust, but the negative pressure oughta keep up with it reasonably well
 
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