Anyone ever try a cheap harbor freight sand blaster?

[Chlngrcrzy]

I was thinking about getting a small pressurized sand blaster from harbor freight, and using it for cleaning up miscellaneous parts. It will cost me about a $125 to rent a large pot and compressor for a day, but a cheap 20 or 30 lb pot from HB will cost about half that, and i will have it and able to use it whenever. Anyone try one of these? Money is money and i certainly do not want to waste any if these things do not work. I have a blast cabinent at work, but it is kind of hard to get large peices in it.

[Alaskan_TA]

I have one, it works OK with my 85 gallon compressor, but I have to stop & let the air catch up every so often.

[challengerx]

I bought one and when it works it works great. I think my problem is not with the sandblaster itself, but my compressor. You need a bigger compressor and some good, dry media, do not try play ground sand (at least my experience).

[Chlngrcrzy]

Thanks guys. I have an 85 compr. in my garage also. I suspose that the only difference in the sand pots is their holding capacity. For small jobs the 20 or 30# pot should work okay?

[ShelbyDogg]

The difference between the small one and big one besides more fillups is the way they fill. The small one uses a funnel and the large one has a funnel shaped top. Get the next size up so you wont have to mess with the funnel.

[elitecustombody]

The difference between the small one and big one besides more fillups is the way they fill. The small one uses a funnel and the large one has a funnel shaped top. Get the next size up so you wont have to mess with the funnel.

 

spend $150 and buy a better one,you won't have to deal with funnels, just twist and pull out the cap,fill up and pop the cap back on,

 just make sure your compressor is up to the task, that's the reason I just bought a 120 gallon 10hp 47 CFM compressor , my 80 galon 6.5 hp compressor is waaay too weak

[Bullitt-]

I bought the HF cheepie, & have a minimal 30-gallon 5HP compressor.  For my purposes it works well, but I'm not having to blast a lot of heavy rust.  It did not come with a dead-man valve which makes using it more of a chore, I think most of the bigger ones include this.  Biggest problem I've had with this & other blasters was moisture clogging the nozzle, but I have managed to add enough line(for cooling) & filters to overcome that,

[Travis72]

How big are the parts that you want to blast?  They won't fit in a sandblast cabinet?  Because if they do, I would recommend a cabinet instead.

I ended up having to replace a lot of the valves and fittings on my HF pressure pot blaster because otherwise it would get clogged or just randomly spit out media.  So I think I spent more time messing around with the thing than I did actually blasting.  I also ended up replacing the value/nozzle with a dead man's valve that worked a lot better.  So be prepared to replace parts with higher quality parts and use LOTS of teflon tape or other sealant on the HF fittings otherwise they will leak like crazy.

It also makes a huge mess.

Travis
72 Cuda

[Chlngrcrzy]

Thanks for the info guys. All my parts are small, and most will fit in the blast cabinent at work. However i want to do my rear axle and springs, etc.,  and front k member, inside my bumpers and stuff like that. And i will probably never use the darn thing again, thats why i don't want to invest too much into it.

[Chlngrcrzy]

Went down to the local harbor Freight store today. Lucky me. They had a shelf model they were wanting to sell. It was the 40 gallon model, with the easy fill top, deadman handle, extra nozzles and all. $95 bucks, and it was already put togehter. I slapped a little teflon tape on all the threads and fittings. Hope to give her a try this weekend on my k member.

[the_engineers]

Getting the small cabinet one from a friend next week.  He liked his so much, he upgraded to the next larger size.

[Chlngrcrzy]

The cabinents are great. We have a large one at work that i have used acouple times.

[dougs bs23]

I have one identical to the one in Travis' pic,  Used it so much on my entire project, I replaced the ball valves several times as well as the hose because the media I used cut through them, Also went thru alot of nozzels because the ceramic seems to dissinigrate after a while.  It's been a good soldier overall but I think the deadman nozzle is a good idea.  For really small stuff, maybe you should consider a tumbler, and if you can do a cabinet thats the best way to keep from creating a beach like area where your working. As I remaamber, when I was working on my stuff, my driveway looked like a beach

[Chlngrcrzy]

  And it never seems to go away either. I am still blowing it out of every crevass and hiding spot on the car. Everytime i roll it over on the rotisserie, it dumps sand out of somewhere.

[Travis72]

Yep.... it seems like every time I hammer something on the car, media would come out of some seam... even two years later!  And I've blown a ton of air through every seam I can find.  I guess I just need to get the car running so it can shake out while I'm driving!   

Travis
72 Cuda