Planet Minis

arcticaaron

Why would the sheet metal warp? Does blasting generate a lot of heat? I've never media blasted so I'm curious. Thanks for all the info and suggestions.

35mastr

Yes it does. You will warp a panel in minutes if you dont know what your doing.

cdoublejj

oohh wow thanks for the heads up.

JohnnyB

Ok .., here mine ... I'm not done with it yet so it's not too pretty for now , but it gets the job done ..

Since I'm only use'n the hand held speed blaster ..., I only had to cut a hole in the bottom of the cabinet . Then I mounted up a large mouth plastic bottle to it . That way I can brush the used media into the bottle , then unscrew it from the cabinet , so I can sift the media and refill the speed blaster .
You can see the bottle , its that white blob right above the exhaust on the generator ..

I made this unit use'n one sheet of sheet of plywood ..., I use'd whole sheet on this project ..., That's why I made a cabinet above it .

I use glass bead and it works really well on most parts that have no primer base other wise it just takes longer to get clean .

Oh , and btw .., Get a water spererator for the air line .. Or after while .., the nozzel will clog up and you won't get good flow .

weekendwarrior

the time, effort and money you would put into building one. it is better to send out out your work to a shop that way you will get your work done quicker and you will also be helping your local economy by keeping someone in business

arcticaaron

That looks quite functional JohnnyB! Thanks for the photos.

I disagree on it being "better" to send the parts off to a shop. It looks like these can easily be built for under $250. And as for effort and time, it is just straightforward plywood and 2x4s that are screwed together. Once built, I'll have a sandblasting cabinet for the next 20+ years. Right now I have 4 bikes I want to fix up and paint, plus other projects where the blaster would come in useful.

I do agree that it would be easier and faster to have someone blast the parts for me and I may have the powdercoater do that for my first CT (depending on when I build the cabinet). But I enjoy working on bikes and slowly fixing them up, that's why I bought a CT that needs lots of work!

arcticaaron

Well I took my CT70 frame and parts to the local powdercoater and he quoted me $685 to sandblast and powdercoat (Tiger brand candy blue). They do good work but that is more than I'm willing to spend on a hobby project.

I've ordered the sandblasting cabinet kit from tptools - Build-Your-Own Cabinet - Trigger-Operated System - TP Tools & Equipment plus a few other accessories for the cabinet. I'll post some pics once I get the cabinet together and have tested it out. Then I'll be needing some advice on painting the parts.

35mastr

Here is the pic that I found of the ones built from refrigerators.

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