Cleaned some parts with glass bead...

[Suprapowaz!(2)]

I went to my friends shop and used his blast cabinet. I dumped out his Lowe's bought play sand, and bought a 50lbs bag of #6 glass bead. The reason why I bought this is because I was cleaning some aluminum parts, and the rep at the store said playsand will be harsh on those parts. He recommended the glass bead.

Either it's the glass bead, the gun, or the user (me), but that shit sucked. It took a long time to clean parts, but it did come out ok. Did barely anything for cast parts. It didn't scale rust off like I thought it would. It just sucked. The play sand he had in there worked better than this glass bead. It's more agressive, but dusty.

Has anybody had any experience with glass bead? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I started off with 40psi, and worked my way up to 90psi. It worked better using higher pressure, but the rep who sold it to me said high pressure will break up the bead. What do you guys do?

 

[adampecush]

It sounds like you weren't drawing enough blast media through the gun. I use our glass bead blaster here at work (5x4 cabinet) and it will clean the rust off of anything. Even my cheap sandblaster at home (using silica sand) works like a charm. My typical blast pressure is around 60psi for steel, 40 for aluminum.

 

[shaeff]

Are you sure you had a wide enough tip on there to let the bead through?

 

[IJ.]

50psi is about as high as I go, any higher and it shatters the beads and just makes dust. (they're meant to break on impact but not so much they turn to dust)

 

[HommerSimpson]

You had Equipment Failure......

 

[DegreE]

I'm thinking about picking up a media blast cabnet from Cornwell for $400. I have TONS of shit I want to clean up and paint before I go NA-T.

I've used play sand on valve covers, intake manifolds, fuel rails, etc.... and never had any problems in the past.

I would have just stayed with the playsand.

 

[adampecush]

I would have just stayed with the playsand.

For safety reasons, I'd avoid playsand.

(Silica doesn't play well with the respiratory tract)

 

[gaboonviper85]

For safety reasons, I'd avoid playsand.

(Silica doesn't play well with the respiratory tract)

thats why you blast in a cabnet...and most good cabnets have vacume filter set up to pull the dust out...

Sounds to me like you used the wrong media or gun.....ive never seen a tarnish or rust that couldnt be pulled with a bead blaster....and considering I'm a machinist I would say I have about 3000 hours of bead blasting under my belt....

 

[Wayne G.]

Playsand will generate lots of dust in a cabinet. Norther tools or Harbor freight sell several types of blast media. Glass bead will cut rust, but not as well as black slag media or Aluminum Oxide. Glass bead does very well on alum. castings. Plain sand if used outdoors will work for heavy steel parts.

 

[Suprapowaz!(2)]

Maybe it was equipment failure. The tip is about a 1/4" wide with a 7/16" draw hose and tube. Exactly how much media should be coming out of that gun? Are you supposed to be able to see a steady stream of it coming out?? His gun kept getting jambed up with the GB, so I had to cover the tip while spraying to unclog it. It pushed the air pressure back through the gun. That could be it, no?