I bought one of the HF 5 gallon small sand blasters to blast the old paint and rust from my trucks rear bumper. What air pressure are you guys using to get the job done in a timely fashion, yet not create such a dust storm and waste sand ?

 

I use 90 psi. It works good for me, But I am not a pro.

 

I also used 90 psi for my 5 gallon pressure blaster. It was the max rating on mine. I did my whole '50 F1 frame. It took about four 80# bags of blasting sand. I reused each bag about 2 or 3 times before the granules wore down to mostly dust. I used a 30gallon Craftsman compressor that stabilized at 120 psi and set my output regulator to 90 psi. Doublecheck the rating on your sand blaster, and triple check all fittings and hose clamps before filling it with sand. Give it a dry run with just air to make sure everything stays together when you hit the shut off valve on the gun. And to be safe, wear long sleeves and the blasting hood, and leather gloves, and a good quality gas mask with replaceable screw in filters. Safety first. Good Luck and have fun.

 

thanks for the tips all. I sat the bumper up on sawhorses , put on tyvek coveralls, gloves, my fresh air hood /system and used Lowes playsand, with air pressure set at 90 psi. It was cleaning the bumper nice, but I went thru 150 lb of sand and didnt even get one side of it but half done. ..

I had to stop anyway, because the sand dust storm it was creating was blowing in to the neighbors back yard. I think the guy will probaly not like having sand dust on his fruit trees. I may have to find me a sandblasting service, this back yard sandblasting is a huge mess,

 

That sounds like alot of sand for a bumper. Not sure why you used so much. But it does gets sand everywhere.

 

Yep, that is a lot. He mentioned using play sand which has a vast range of granule sizes, and rocks, and pebbles. That's just not the right media for blasting. It would require a large nozzle orifice and loads of air to move those big particles. That would most likely explain why he went through so much and why it was so dusty.

I bought my 80lb bags of -80 blasting media from my local building supply store and it only cost a buck more and change as opposed to a 50 lb bag of play sand. This stuff has uniform granules, minimal dust, and can be reused at least 2 or 3 times with proper filtering of contaminants.

 

It also sounds like he didn't set up a tent at all just blasted outside. When sandblasting, always set up a plastic tent. It helps a ton to keep the mess contained, and makes sweeping up the sand to strain it and re-use it a lot easier.

 

there was a recall a few years back on those sandblasting units blowing up and killing people not sure if it applied to the harbor freight ones though. when i did mine i just went to my local rental supply and rented a industrial blaster and a trailer mounted air compressor. i set the pressure to 220 psi and i did the whole thing in about 20 mins. you can rent that setup for under 350.00

 

I have a harbor freight blaster. It works good, except the clamps it came with were really flimsy, and the blaster hose burst. You get what you pay for.