Considering Portable Sandblasters?
It is often said that to do a job right you need the right tools and nowhere is that true more than with portable sandblasters. It is here you can not go half way; you also need all the right sandblasting equipment and sandblasting supplies. If not you are just causing yourself a larger headache. The portable sandblasters are a tool that do jobs that only they can do.
To be clear, one needs to make a distinction between portable sandblasters and table top sand blasters. The problem here is really just in the name; a table top sandblaster is not really a sand blaster at all but a smaller, portable sandblast cabinet. You might use a table top cabinet on a job site to keep from having to go back to your shop but you would use one of your portable sandblasters in conjunction with it.
Sandblasting itself is sort of a misnomer. Yes, it is possible to use beach sand in one it is just not that good of an idea. Even washed the sand will contain salts that will start to corrode metal. If what you were sandblasting was metal then you will need to be extra through with the pressure washer to remove all the salts. The other problem with sand is that it is all but impossible to control the size of the grains. Nowadays aluminum is use as it is light, strong, and able to be sized. When buying you sandblasting supplies you will notice that. For some projects that require work out side of the sandblast cabinets you will see they use even softer abrasives such as crushed nut shells; they keep the blasting process from working to fast.
Another type of portable sandblasters you might run into is not a sandblaster at all but a soda-blaster. It blast sodium bicarbonate instead of a rougher abrasive. It is mostly used to clean copper statuary to remove the patina (green). It does not remove rust but was used to clean the Statue of Liberty (would you really want her refereed to as the big green lady?) The other difference with soda-blasters is that the sodium bicarbonate is not gravity feed like portable sandblasters.
Portable sandblasters are not very complicated but it is rather important to keep a few things in mind if you want to try to build your own. You should use tungsten car-bite in any piece you can. The whole point of portable sandblasters is to dissolve surfaces and that means it will do it to your sandblasting equipment too. Tungsten car-bite is 5 times harder than steel and is almost your only choice when picking a nozzle but use it where you can as well. The other big concern you should have is your pressure pot. Now you might do some welding around the house but this is not that type of welding. The vessel is under pressure so it needs to be done by a professional welder.
Portable sandblasters are a great tool. If use correctly, they can make a project look perfect.
