Harbour fright Pressurized sand/bead blaster

Starting to bead blast my landing gear and assorted fittings getting
ready to pain and inspect closely.

Purchased a pressurized blaster from harbor freight. The 40lb kind.
dumped a box of #8 beads in and expected to blast off. Nope. Nada.
Seems glass bead is hygroscopic or hydrophylic take yer pick.
Compressed air in North Carolina is quite wet. Glass bead wet air = no
blasting.

Solution.
Take one bog standard portable air tank. Drill a hole in the side of
the thing or top does'nt matter. Weld a steel male to male bung onto
the side of it and then attach a ball valve or quick connect.
Remove air fitting that came with the tank. I was left with a 1/2"
threaded bung. Using a 1/2 steel pipe nipple and 90Deg fitting from
Lowes aerospace supply company I hung a Johnson Controls Filter
regulator on it. (also from lowes)

How the setup works.
1. Locate the compressor in a different location than where you are
blasting.
2. connect an airline fromt he compressor to the header tank/reg/filter.
This is important. The length of the line will help cool the air down.
This allows water to condensate out and get trapped in the header tank.
The longer the line the better the results (in theory) Im getting
good results with a 25 foot line.
3. feed the blaster from the header tank thru the filter/regulator.
4. Blast away.


Works well for me.
Sean Trost

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 18:09:32 GMT, Sean Trost
wrote:


Solution.
Take one bog standard portable air tank. Drill a hole in the side of
the thing or top does'nt matter. Weld a steel male to male bung onto
the side of it and then attach a ball valve or quick connect.
Remove air fitting that came with the tank. I was left with a 1/2"
threaded bung. Using a 1/2 steel pipe nipple and 90Deg fitting from
Lowes aerospace supply company I hung a Johnson Controls Filter
regulator on it. (also from lowes)

How the setup works.
1. Locate the compressor in a different location than where you are
blasting.
2. connect an airline fromt he compressor to the header tank/reg/filter.
This is important. The length of the line will help cool the air down.
This allows water to condensate out and get trapped in the header tank.
The longer the line the better the results (in theory) Im getting
good results with a 25 foot line.
3. feed the blaster from the header tank thru the filter/regulator.
4. Blast away.


Works well for me.
Sean Trost
now that's an interesting approach. I've battled with a regulator with
creamic water trap for some time and it just doesnt work well enough
to trap out all the water.
thanks mate
Stealth Pilot
Australia

My brother has a VW compressor which runs on two of the four cylinders and
has compressor heads on the other two. Although it produces plenty of air,
it is oily, hot, and certainly can have a high water content in a Brisbane
(Australia) summer. As the compressor cylinders are lubricated by the dirty
engine oil, the oil content in the air tank is yuck. (Technical term!)

As a condensation unit he uses 20 feet of 3/4 inch copper water pipe coiled
up inside a 44 gallon (55 US gallon) drum full of water. The air enters at
the top of the coil and travells down the coil to the bottom of the drum and
then the copper pipe is bent back up out of the water. This cooled air is
then fed to a commercial water and oil trap which catches almost every last
drop of oil from the now cooled air.

He uses the air for sand blasting timber for artistic furniture and creative
artwork and the air is cleaner than anything else he has tried. If there is
any oil or water in the air it stains the timber and he gets pretty finicky
with his quality control......

If he uses it for continued operation, he changes the water in the drum
after about an hour or leaves a hose running to overflow the drum so the hot
water is continually changed with fresh cold water and the garden gets a
drink.

The copper pipe is readily available at your local hardware store, and a
copper olive from a standard plumbing fitting soldered on each end of the
pipe makes a great bevel for the hose clamp to hold against so the flexible
hose can't blow off. You might use a flair to do the same thing. This part
is cheap, the drum also is an old second hand plastic one (no rusty water)
with one end cut out, but a garbage can or and old oil drum would be just as
good as it only has to hold water and no pressure.

The lot is mounted on the back of an old unregistered farm truck so he can
keep it in the shed and drive down the back paddock when he wants to blast
the timber and that way he leaves all the mess down the paddock.

Hope this helps,
Peter

Peter,

Jeebus! Did a fellow named Rube Goldberg have anything to do with the
construction?

BillC85


"Bushy" wrote in message
...
My brother has a VW compressor which runs on two of the four cylinders and
has compressor heads on the other two. Although it produces plenty of air,
it is oily, hot, and certainly can have a high water content in a Brisbane
(Australia) summer. As the compressor cylinders are lubricated by the
dirty
engine oil, the oil content in the air tank is yuck. (Technical term!)

As a condensation unit he uses 20 feet of 3/4 inch copper water pipe
coiled
up inside a 44 gallon (55 US gallon) drum full of water. The air enters at
the top of the coil and travells down the coil to the bottom of the drum
and
then the copper pipe is bent back up out of the water. This cooled air is
then fed to a commercial water and oil trap which catches almost every
last
drop of oil from the now cooled air.

He uses the air for sand blasting timber for artistic furniture and
creative
artwork and the air is cleaner than anything else he has tried. If there
is
any oil or water in the air it stains the timber and he gets pretty
finicky
with his quality control......

If he uses it for continued operation, he changes the water in the drum
after about an hour or leaves a hose running to overflow the drum so the
hot
water is continually changed with fresh cold water and the garden gets a
drink.

The copper pipe is readily available at your local hardware store, and a
copper olive from a standard plumbing fitting soldered on each end of the
pipe makes a great bevel for the hose clamp to hold against so the
flexible
hose can't blow off. You might use a flair to do the same thing. This part
is cheap, the drum also is an old second hand plastic one (no rusty water)
with one end cut out, but a garbage can or and old oil drum would be just
as
good as it only has to hold water and no pressure.

The lot is mounted on the back of an old unregistered farm truck so he can
keep it in the shed and drive down the back paddock when he wants to blast
the timber and that way he leaves all the mess down the paddock.

Hope this helps,
Peter

It probably more of a monument to the memory of "Steptoe and Son", (British
TV series about a garbage and scrap recycler from many years ago) but it
works a treat.

Just the sort of tools you expect to see us poor homebuilders working with!

Hope this helps,
Peter

"BillC85" wrote in message
...
Peter,

Jeebus! Did a fellow named Rube Goldberg have anything to do with the
construction?

BillC85


"Bushy" wrote in message
...
My brother has a VW compressor which runs on two of the four cylinders
and
has compressor heads on the other two. Although it produces plenty of
air,
it is oily, hot, and certainly can have a high water content in a
Brisbane
(Australia) summer. As the compressor cylinders are lubricated by the
dirty
engine oil, the oil content in the air tank is yuck. (Technical term!)

As a condensation unit he uses 20 feet of 3/4 inch copper water pipe
coiled
up inside a 44 gallon (55 US gallon) drum full of water. The air enters
at
the top of the coil and travells down the coil to the bottom of the drum
and
then the copper pipe is bent back up out of the water. This cooled air
is
then fed to a commercial water and oil trap which catches almost every
last
drop of oil from the now cooled air.

He uses the air for sand blasting timber for artistic furniture and
creative
artwork and the air is cleaner than anything else he has tried. If there
is
any oil or water in the air it stains the timber and he gets pretty
finicky
with his quality control......

If he uses it for continued operation, he changes the water in the drum
after about an hour or leaves a hose running to overflow the drum so the
hot
water is continually changed with fresh cold water and the garden gets a
drink.

The copper pipe is readily available at your local hardware store, and a
copper olive from a standard plumbing fitting soldered on each end of
the
pipe makes a great bevel for the hose clamp to hold against so the
flexible
hose can't blow off. You might use a flair to do the same thing. This
part
is cheap, the drum also is an old second hand plastic one (no rusty
water)
with one end cut out, but a garbage can or and old oil drum would be
just
as
good as it only has to hold water and no pressure.

The lot is mounted on the back of an old unregistered farm truck so he
can
keep it in the shed and drive down the back paddock when he wants to
blast
the timber and that way he leaves all the mess down the paddock.

Hope this helps,
Peter

The better solution (the one that will actually work) is to find a pneumatic or
industrial parts supplier and get a coalescing filter unit of the appropriate
size. The standard filtration rate in the Wilkerson units that I used to sell
was .1 microns, although you can get cartridges that will filter down to .003
microns. The standard filtration rate for Home Depot/Lowe's/HF units is 60-40
microns.

The setup that I'd use would be to go from the compressor tank, through a
standard industrial-quality piggyback filter/reg., into a receiver tank (made
of a 7-gal inflator tank modified with a few push-to-connect fittings. Then
out of the receiver tank, through the coalescer, through another reg. if you
need it, and then into the tool. That's the setup that is used on most of the
industrial machines that I now work in, and should eliminate most of the
problems you are having. I'd also definately locate that compressor inside in
a clean area. Outside compressors suck in a lot of junk and moisture. Be sure
that your air line includes a drop-leg or a tank drain somewhere, and that all
of your air take-offs are located on the top side of your fixed air line.

Harry "former pneumatic systems specialist" Frey