Ok, if I don't rent an air compressor, what would be the lowest end air compressor, in order to be effective. what would I truly need. A previous poster had said he used a bucket sandblaster and was quite effective. So what is the catch, what should I look out for?
I'm thinking of checking out Lowes, home depot, sears and this tractor supply coimpany to look at the compressors tomorrow.

Would I need a 2 stage or can I live with a single stage?
is 5 hp enough or would I need 6 or 7 or maybe more.?
What is the least PSI and CFM would I need?
is 60 gallon the smallest i should go?
does it matter if its 110 or 220 volt?


Thanks

 

5 hp - 2 stage - 60 gal min. With this size, I think it'll have to be 220v.

My .02

marc

 

I was the previous poster and marc just about perfectly described my compressor. 6.5 HP - 60 gallon - runs on 220 - not sure if it's single or 2 stage tho. Looking at the cylinder block it must have 2 pistons in there.

$398 at Home Cheapo.

 

the two pistons mean nothing it is just a inline 2 cylinder compressor a 2 stage takes air into the first cylinder and compresses it and then sends it to the smaller piston that will compress it to about 250 psi then sends it to the tank a 2 stage compressor will fill the tank fast but it will also empty your wallet fast because the cheapest ones start at about $ 1400.00 give or take if you go to home depot and buy a husky air compressor the compressor is made by campbell hausfeld for homedepot same with all their air tools all in all they are very good compressors.just check the air requirement on your highest need air tool and add 10 % to it to find you lowest operating cfm a sandblaster will run from about 70 through 140 psi but works great at 80 - 85 psi and make sure you buy a 100 % duty cycle air compressor if you paln on the compressor running more than 30 min in 1 hour .

 

sancochojoe to answer your question about h.p. don't bother looking at it too hard they are overrated what you need to look at is the cfm at the two different variables most likely 40 and 90 psi the h.p. on the compressor is just max h.p. in start up with a large flywheel to find true h.p. take the volts x amps then divide it by 746 this will give you the true h.p. this works with any electric motor

 

i use my porter cable cpl6025 for sandblasting and it works great it never runs out of air the same thing when using air tools the pressure will drop to about 78 psi and stay there and it is only a 25 gallon compressor and if you need a good compressor at a cheap price go to www.grizzly.com they have a great compressor that puts out 9 cfm for only 199.00

 

Well I have an aircompressor now, it it appears it has the juice to run my Sandblaster. The problem with my sanblaster is that
the nozzles that came with it clogs up all the time. I have a filter so there is no moisture. When I take the nozzle out, then I get a big blast of sand and I will use all the sand in less than 10 minutes.

does anyone think I using to much pressure to feed through the tiny nozzle hole. The hole is quite small. Would i need to lower the amount of pressure?

 

How big is the opening in your tip? Everything I've got is near a quarter inch and I've never had a plug at the tip. The bucket plugs up on me!

What grit of sand are you using? #60 is what I've been using here recently and it makes sense a bigger grit could be more prone to plugging.

A 100 lb bag of sand takes me way more than 10 minutes too. I take compressor breaks but still, I'll be blasting for hours on a bag.

 

What size and brand of compressor did you get?

You'll just have to experiment with it - even with a filter there can be moisture. Clogging is usually just how it is with sandblasting.

I like to lean towards a higher volume of sand and a lower air pressure to speed the job up, and lessen chances of warping sheetmetal.

marc

 

What I'm doing is ordering different nozzles. The wand (deadman Gun) has an opening that is 1/4 inch. The nozzles that came with the tank were about 1/16, 1/32. I think that is a bit toooo small. So I ordered a 1/4 and a 1/8 nozzle. I'm using the crystaline Silica sold at the auto shop in my town that cost about $8 for a 100 pound bag.

I'll try again this weekend when my order comes. Plus I had to order Zero Rust for my frame.

oh, I bought a 60 gallon compressor with 2 cylinders.
7 HP 1 hp motor
15.1 SCFM 40 PSI
13.5 SCFM 90 PSI
140 Max PSI

 

is that compressor the campbell hausfeld iron force

 

yep, it seems to work pretty good. Had to wire it to my breaker.
It says 17.5 amps but with my dual 20 amps it would not start, so I had to go get a dual 30 amp breaker, than it fired right up. I guess it sucks up more than 20 amps to get started. I hate the fact that I had to make a second trip.

 

From the amateur cheapskate side:

Mine clogged up all the time too, but I started making sure

a) the sand was dry
b) the sand was filtered
c) i used an un-oiled hose.

a) is easy - i use home depot/lowes sand (whichever is cheaper), but there are a lot of little chunks in there that clog up the works.
b) i duct taped some fine window screening to my sand funnel and all is good now. My boys gave me a hard time about it, so I bought an "official" screen/sieve from Eastwood. It is about as effective as the duct taped screening.
c) use one hose to my frl unit for tools, a seperate one straight to the sandblaster tank (no oil to clog up blaster). Air hoses are cheap (< $10) so having one you can use just for blasting is good.

I agree that a big compressor will work better, but I use an el cheapo (i.e. chinese, HF) 4 hp 20 gallon compressor, an equally el cheapo (i.e. chinese, HF) 20lb pressure tank blaster and the smaller nozzles (3.2MM). About halfway through the frame, sigh. Takes longer than with a 40hp trailer mounted compressor and blaster setup. A lot longer. But less sand. I rented a trailer rig for the last vehicle before the truck (a 61 A-H sprite) and, while it did everything quickly, took an enormous amount of sand and didn't leave me much control. Didn't have to take any time off for the compressor to recharge though! There is still the outline of that sprite's hood on my old driveway. Betcha the current owner wonders about it.

The key to air volume is nozzle size. 3.6MM nozzles require a lot more air than 3.2MM nozzles, but they also will flow more sand. More air and sand means you can spend less time doing the job but they also require bigger tools (not that bigger tools aren't great, they just cost a lot more).

My cheapo compressor recharges a lot, but so what? I bought it for $159 new and spent another $10 on an extended warranty. My thoughts are to run the heck out of it and get a new one if it breaks - if it doesn't break, that's good too. The only other concern for me on compressor sizing is painting. Luckily, I've got a buddy with a couple of 6000 gallon tanks at his dive shop -- extremely well filtered air, btw, who's offered to let me paint in his shop.

Also, using a respirator helps (keeps the sand out of your lungs, a good thing, no?).

Bob

 

Yep, The label on my sandbag says that the State of California found that breathing that stuff in your lungs can cause Cancer.

 

LOL the state of california finds a lot of things about a lot of things.....they kinda think they know everything