I'm looking to get some sort of sandblasting setup for stripping rust and finish from small parts (magazines, actions, slides, etc) so I can recoat them, primarily with KG at first. Stopped by Harbor Freight just to look around and figure out exactly how much I didn't know and came away with the following questions:
1) The instructions for KG say very explicitly to only use aluminum oxide media, never ceramic. The instructions for the couple of blast cabinets that they had there had, in bold print, only use ceramic never abrasives like aluminum oxide. Can someone explain the logic behind each and what I should consider when trying to rectify the two rules?
2) I'm not planning on doing this very much, just from time to time and only on small parts. I'd prefer just to use my modest sized compressor, possibly with a standby tank if I want a little more capacity. I had been looking at the pressurized systems vs the siphon just because it appears to use about 1/3 the airflow to operate and so it should work better with my smaller compressor. Is this something I should consider or is the siphon system built into a blast cabinet a better choice?
3)They had 70grit oxide media available for a relatively modest price/lb. 220 grit was also available for much much more. What grit would be good for stripping off rust and finish from gun parts prior to being coated?
If I wanted a small blast cabinet setup to use a modest (20-40lb) pressurized system for cleaning small parts, where would be a good place to go look? Are there hobbyist sized units available or would I be best off just assembling what I need from harbor freight offerings? Don't want to spend a bunch of money on something designed to be used 40hrs a week, but I'd rather not spend money on crap that isn't going to cut it either.
1) The instructions for KG say very explicitly to only use aluminum oxide media, never ceramic. The instructions for the couple of blast cabinets that they had there had, in bold print, only use ceramic never abrasives like aluminum oxide. Can someone explain the logic behind each and what I should consider when trying to rectify the two rules?
2) I'm not planning on doing this very much, just from time to time and only on small parts. I'd prefer just to use my modest sized compressor, possibly with a standby tank if I want a little more capacity. I had been looking at the pressurized systems vs the siphon just because it appears to use about 1/3 the airflow to operate and so it should work better with my smaller compressor. Is this something I should consider or is the siphon system built into a blast cabinet a better choice?
3)They had 70grit oxide media available for a relatively modest price/lb. 220 grit was also available for much much more. What grit would be good for stripping off rust and finish from gun parts prior to being coated?
If I wanted a small blast cabinet setup to use a modest (20-40lb) pressurized system for cleaning small parts, where would be a good place to go look? Are there hobbyist sized units available or would I be best off just assembling what I need from harbor freight offerings? Don't want to spend a bunch of money on something designed to be used 40hrs a week, but I'd rather not spend money on crap that isn't going to cut it either.
