First, I don't know where to put this, so I'm posting it in my favorite section...I will rely on Jeff or another mod to place this where it belongs.



Ghetto Sandblaster

warning: I will not accept responsibillity for any damage to you, your stuff, or your relationship with God...ever. Always wear safty goggles.



Okay, I built this the other day to try and clean some parts for my RX7. It works fairly decent but I wouldn't put it up to par with a real sand blaster.

things needed:

Air compressor and tank
how ever much hose you need to reach what you want
36" of spare high pressure hose
5gallon air tank (spare tank...not for compressor)
stool with a round top...must sit higher than coupler on air tank (more convientient but it doesn't HAVE to be higher)
air chuck (the kind that just blows air, not that airs tires up)
hose clamps
12" of 3/8" steel tubing
A cast iron "T" and various fittings (sizes and particular fittings will vary for your own application)

First, need to make your sand tank. Mine was made from an old air tank, must be sure your tank has round or slanted ends so that the sand will flow to the point of exit (tank will stand vertically). I did this by taking it and removing all of the purge of refil gadgets and replacing them with bolts with plenty of sealent, then I drilled a hole in either end. I made the hole at one end (top) about 1" in diameter and welded a large nut to it so that I could thread a bolt in and seal it. Then I drilled a 3/8" hole at the other end and welded a piece of 3/8" (6" long) steel tubing in it...I tried my best to make it flush within the tank. I then found a steel nut that just barely fit over the tubing and welded it to bother the tank and the tubing for added strength. I then coated the tubing in silicone sealant and forced one end of the piece of 36" high pressure hose onto it, and secured it with as many hose clamps as I could put around it (four in my case). Now you have a tank...yay.

Next we will build the junction and mixing chamber for the air and sand. First here you will need a male and female coupler (one to fit the air pump and one to plug your hose into). You will need the various fittings to adapt those couplers to a cast iron "T" fitting. Then you will want to find a 3/8" nipple for the perpundicular fitting of the "T". You want something you can either thread and seal a piece of 3/8" tubing into or one where you can weld the remainder of your tubing into it. After you have your couplers installed and sealed and the nipple ready to have the hose attached you're done for the moment.

Now for the stool. I had an old style stool that I used for this. It was all metal except for the top but that isn't important. It was useful to me because A: it raised the sand tank high above the purge coupler on my air compressor and B: it had round loops holding it togethor witch made it very easy to sucure my tank to it and made it look neat. I simply cut the top of the stool off. Then I put my sand tank where the seat used to be (be sure the hose is on the bottom ). But beings mine was a metal stool, I managed to braze my tank to the top rails.

Now, once your tank and stool is together stand it next to your air compressor. You want as close to a straight up and down flow for the sand as possible. To get this, attach your junction/sand-air mix chamber to your compressor and set your sand tank and stand right over it. pull the hose down and mark the length and cut the hose to suit a straight up and down travel for the sand. *If the compressor is too high or something else prevents this you can mount the junction piece on your stool and use another piece of hose to connect it to the compressor. Once you have the propper length measured for your hose attach it to the 3/8" nipple on junction piece in the same fashon as used before.

Then the last piece...the air chuck. I don't know the propper name of this gadget...it's not the one that airs tires up, just the one that blows air when you pull/push a trigger. Now, on these, there's usually a nozzle on the end. They are almost certainly all going to be too restrictive to flow sand propperly unless you use a powder. Solutions are to either bore the noxxle to 1/8" or to remove it all together. I bored mine to 1/8".

Now, fill sand tank with sand and cap off. Plug sand tank into junction piece. Plug air chuck into air hose and hose into junction piece. Then plug junction piece into air compressor tank. Voila! Ghetto sand blaster.

I now feel the need to tell you that the sand tank and junction pieces will last through a 10K year nuclear winter but the hose and chuck prolly will die short of their time...but I haven't used mine much so I don't know how long to expect them to last...my chuck seams to be holding up great but I can't inspect my hose so I dunno. And I'm serious about the goggles thing...when using this you should wear goggles or a full face mask (prefferably), long thick sleeves, gloves, just be careful...at 120psi this bastard tears through some **** and it bounces everywhere.

Total cost: <$20

 

making your own tools is almost as fun as fixing your car right. CHEERS !

 

I know...it cool cuz it started out as me wanting to just make a really bad *** water gun.

 

pictures? Sounds fun. Though, you can go and buy siphin feed sandblasters for 19.95 at pretty much any auto parts store. Id probably build one for ***** just because its more fun.