Has anyone tried one of the Harbior Freight baking-soda blasters?

[ducksface]

I'm thinking they might clean up stainless and aluminum in a handy fashion both before and after a weld, and could be used as a fire extinguisher [I'm only half kidding, I really don't see why not].

Would the baking-soda residue affect the welding parameters/quality?

I put this in projects because based on general consensus, this is going to be a project for me.

[sportbike]

I typically use a glass bead cabinet to clean parts prior to welding, followed by a wire brush adn sometimes acetone wipe. Back into the bead blast cabinet after welding if appropriate. That is not to say a soda blaster may not work, unless there is a problem with contamination when using soda?

I have only seen soda blasting used for thin sheetmetal such as with automotive bodywork, mostly to prep a restoration project and identify where the rusted areas are. using anything too abrasive or too large on the sheetmal body panels will warp it due to the impingement of the media onto the sheetmetal, as well as the heat generated by the friction of the media.

John

[ScratchStart]

If you are talking about the central brand gravity fed abrasive blaster I have one. It works... kind of a pain to get adjusted the way you want using the two valves..... but it does work, and does a pretty good job, it is messy tho... a cabinet would definately be cleaner, and you would be able to screen/reuse some of your media.

this is the style of the one I have.

[ducksface]

I figured on a cabinet due to the light weight of the media, Have you used it to clean welds or prior to welding? It would be awfull nice to pass a piece through a cabinet, wipe it down and then TIG, and I think I still like the fire supression angle. Stand on the pedal and aim at the fire. it's like a 60 pound fire extinguisher [more of an extinGUSHer].... Or I'm horribly wrong.

i just want to skim/clean for welding and it might put a nice finish on aluminum. have you used it to finish anything?

[Zoomie]

I have a free standing HF blast cabinet that works well. Two things though:
1. When assembling utilize lots of extra RTV or silicone to seal it up.
2. Make sure your compresser can provide enough umph tp run the blaster. (usually indicated on the cabinet exterior nomenclature)
I caught mine on sale and used a coupon or porbably wouldn't have ever bought it. Now I don't know what I'd do without it!

[ScratchStart]

I have blasted a couple old air tanks to use for another project. Tried it on aluminum, but with silica sand it gouges quite a bit. It did do a nice job on the air tanks tho... they had 5 or 6 different layers of paint... peeled em all off nicely. never used soda, but it is supposed to be less aggressive than the sand, may work better on aluminum.

I'm very interested to see if there is any weld contamination. the tanks looked pretty clean, but who knows... I didn't try to weld on them.

[ducksface]

Harbor Freight is 250 miles from my house. It's like an expedition when we go there. I have my coupon and this week is sidewalk sale week. I'll be in Tucson and the whole trip is revolving around HF so I can get a diamond wheel to make the tungsten grinder.


A quick story;
My wife had never been to Harbor Freight. I dragged her along one day. I spent nothing, she spent $400.
That's the kind of wife to have. her HF list is longer than mine for this weekend.

I guess I'll but that blaster.

[jakeru]

I have a small homemade blasting cabinet I use for glass bead blasting, I built it out of a plastic storage box so it doesn't take up all that much room. It works OK on small parts but you need to have the patience. I've used it on small aluminum parts (like a turbocharger parts) and copper parts (antique copper teapot) with very nice looking results. Its kind of a hassle to get out and use though, so I rarely use it. Besides the cabinet just not being large enough, part of the problem is it takes a lot of air flow (and not necessarily pressure) to properly blast with glass beads. My compressor is just a 115V deal and is underpowered for very much blasting. A good air compressor for blasting would have very high cfm @ maybe only 40-50 psi or so, I hear from the blasting pros. Don't run too much pressure at least with glass beads, or you'll shatter them. With proper pressure, you can re-use the media many times.

I've never tried soda (calcium carbonate, right?) blasting before, but would imagine it would be more gentle than your average media. I'm imagining you are going to need a really big compressor to make it work well.

I'd like to see dry ice (CO2) blasting done sometime. The idea of doing your blasting out in the open and not worrying about cleaning up or recycling the media (since it just evaporates) sounds pretty cool.

Edit: here is the before/after photo of a turbocharger compressor housing I glass bead blasted. Note the "matt" texture; its a pretty nice appearance. This is using "AC" grade media.

[Nikola Tesla]

I havnt tried the soda blaster. However, I did buy the larger vibratory tumbler. It seams to work fine if you let it sit and run over nite. Suppose it depends on the material and the agregate I put into it. Only thing I dont like on it is the zinc coated metal parts on it. Something that gets wet like that should be made from stainless. It works anyways.