Working in the shop with my son on his '70 Mustang getting ready to blast. Thinking about crushed glass - any of you have experience with this media?

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I have been told that crushed glass is the way to go. I'm going to try it on the cab of my non Ford project. Might not be until the cooler fall weather though. It's 115 and monsoon is close. Let us know how it does if you try it.

 

What is supposed to be the difference between crushed glass and sand? Both seem like similar products, and working in a glass bead cabinet the parts can still get hot.

 

I'm not sure Wayne - this is a process I've not used before. I don't even know the right questions to ask.
I know he wants to avoid warping panels and he's looking at options.

 

Tim - I’ve debated this too, to the point of paralysis. I’d be interested in hearing from others on their experience using one of the home “dustless” blasting kits that attach to your power washer and mix water with media. It seems the commercial dustless vendors can do a nice job, but at a cost. And not all areas are served by these vendors. I bought one of the HF soda blast kits, but (again) there’s the paralysis. I remember years ago visiting Chuck and saw the mess one of the soda blasting vendors left on his lot so would want to avoid that.

Last, nice to see a black Shelby is still in the family. Stu

 

I had good success with a commercial dustless process. I forget the exact price, but there is a thread you can access from my profile page documenting my experience. I live in a fairly rural area, but there was a guy here that had the equipment willing to take on my project. I knew a guy that knew the guy is how I found him. I'm not sure he does any advertising. He has the equipment mostly for his own use, and doesn't go out of his way to find paying customers. If you decide to go dustless, good luck finding the "guy".

Jim

 

I can certainly understand not wanting to warp panels. And it's very easy to make a mess, in more ways than one, with a sand blaster. I'll share what I know from my years of experience.

No matter what media you use, sand, soda, plastic, etc., the stuff will find it's way into every crack, cranny and hidden spot and will be miserable to get out, and you'll never get it all. You'll find it sifting out for a long time. I've spent hours blowing out blasted cars trying to get it clean enough to begin the paint prep process and it's not fun.

I've worked with sand blasting and plastic media blasting, and been around soda. They work and have their place, although from what I've seen of soda, personally I would avoid it. It leaves the finish of the steel absolutely beautiful, but seen too many horror stories and later failures due to the soda not being neutralized properly, and I don't know enough of how to do that. Plastic does not remove any rust, so if you have rusty areas, you're coming back with sand to finish those areas. Sand is great in tighter and heavily stamped places like door jambs and window openings, pinchwelds, etc. Underhood isn't bad either because the paint there is usually pretty light and comes off quickly. Don't try to take off undercoating by blasting. It's typically too thick and either the material will bounce off or you'll spend too much time in one place trying to remove it and overheat/warp your panels. Scrape and wash with solvent before blasting.

Which brings me to the trick with using sand without damage. It can be done, but takes experience. If your blaster doesn't have documented experience and references with doing cars, move on. It's like welders. You're either an industrial welder, or an automotive welder. They have and need a different skill set. The key is to use #70 silica sand, keep the gun moving, don't sit in one place and build heat. Blast at an angle, not straight on. Try to get an edge of the paint started and work from there back and forth, almost like rolling it off. Even so, I prefer, for safety sake, to just blast the areas I mentioned, and leave the large, flat sheet metal, like your quarters and roof for mechanical sanding. I used what we called a whiz pad, an 8" backing pad on an air buffer/grinder with a 40 grit disc and sanded the paint off. I would go over that with 80 grit on a DA and have a beautiful finish ready for primer. After sandblasting, I would also go over that with that same 80 grit DA and smooth out the profile left from the blaster and clean out the silica from the pits. They'll be tiny pits but you want it clean and they're just large enough to pull the fibers from the rags when you try to wipe it down. The 80 grit leave it just right.

That's about what I know in a nut shell. Good luck with your project.

 

Here's something I found. https://www.abrasivemediasupplies.co...crushed-glass/

 

One thing to be said for dustless blasting is that the abrasive used is delivered by a pressurized water stream that neutralizes the heat generated by the process. Panel trucks have HUGE expanses of sheet metal that would be prone to warping using traditional blasting methods. I stripped the hood and doors by hand, and believe me seeing the dustless equipment pulling into my yard was a welcome sight. The process was noisy and messy, but I have a gravel driveway and no close neighbors, so it was all good.

The equipment belonged to the owner of a big trucking company. Maybe he uses it for his trucks in his repair shop. Someone told me he was a big classic car collector and always has restoration projects going. The equipment operator was an employee of the trucking company and seemed very familiar with automotive blasting. I'm a satisfied customer and would use the process again on another project (if one came along).

Jim

 

I wet blasted the frame on my ‘52 F-3 using the power washer blaster kit, and I will say that it does work IF the sand has been screened and is completely dry. Any moisture in the sand, and the suction tube gets clogged or restricted… if you go the DIY route, I would add the Hold-tight 102 rust inhibitor or similar product to keep from flash rusting, it’s supposed to allow 24-48 hours before any rusting begins. I would not personally dry blast due to the silica in the air from the dust created during the process, it’s no joke and is dangerous to your lungs. One other factor regarding wet blasting, is the amount of water needed, I’m on a well and worry about the amount of water used in the process. I agree with the others regarding the panel warping and always having sand in all crevices, kind of a pain. I also have a glass bead cabinet, and will say that the glass media will “powder” once its life is done, not sure how many cycles you’ll get out of glass media when wet blasting. These are my experiences, others mileage may vary. Best of luck.
w

 

I have a wet blast set up for my pressure washer that works well. The best media I found is:

Black Diamond 50 lb. Medium Blasting Abrasives at Tractor Supply Co.

It is consistent with no dust. I believe it comes in different sizes and I forget what I used. The wet blast will leave flash rust. I use Ospho to stop that.

 

Ospho is awesome but SOME primers don't like it.

 

I appreciate all the comments and experience shared here - I'll pass this along! Thank you!

 

Perhaps late to the party here. I used stripper disks on a mini grinder to strip my truck. Worked great, fast and no heat build up. Then on areas where I could not get the disk I used a small sand blaster using the advice given above. More labour but less material cost.

 

I live in a rural sparsely area but I found a mobile dustless sandblaster to blast the Ford script bed I was fixing up . It took him about 3 hours. He charged me $425. He then sprayed it with HoldTight to keep it from flash rusting. He said I had 72 hours to get primer on the bed.

He did a nice job. It took off the several layers of paint and rust. But..... dustless? Yes, at that moment. But there were piles of sand on the floor of the equipment shed. And sand was stuck on the side of the concrete block wall. I had to use a snow shovel to clean it up. Then used my backpack blower. But I didn't get it all. Then when the wind blew it kicked sand up onto my truck.