Ok First off I work at a body shop.
Next I have surface rust on the underside of the roof of my 48 F1.
I'm not going to Sandblast it because it will warp, but are there other media that can be "blasted" from a sandblaster that wont warp it? I have heard of baking soda, but a m not sure. I also have a speed blaster.
Thanks for the help

Matt

 

why not just leave it and coat it with POR-15 then paint over it. This will stop the rust. If there is no headliner than you will probably want a better surface finish.

 

There's also walnut shells, poly bead, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, and glass bead as well as the various grit grades of sand. Soda blasting works very well but make a major mess and the entire vehicle must be stipped out, glass, electricals, everything.
Aluminum oxide would probably be best if you don't want to completly dissassemble your truck.

Cheers


--Heaven will be inherited by every man who has Ford in his soul--

 

My whole truck is stripped bare. will any of these materials now warp me inner roof? Where can I purchase these items?
Thanks
matt

 

this website has alot of info bestofblasting.com

 

Warping sheetmetal by sandblasting is a myth!
I use a siphon type blaster with plain old sandbox sand from lowes at $3.19 per 50lbs. My compressor runs around 8cfm and I never let the nozzle sit idle.
This sand is super fine and doesn't heat the metal.
Warping comes from high powered blasters and heavy grit sand and the operator holding the nozzle in one spot too long.

I just started doing my cab and I haven't warped a panel yet.

 

>I just started doing my cab and I haven't warped a panel yet.
Krosati>


Ditto - I've finished our cab, fenders and doors - no warping. Only diff. we get our sand at Home Depot and I'm using a small Pressure feed unit we got as Sears.

Carlene

 

I also have not had problems with warping. I get my sand for free straight from the source- the open desert here in New Mexico!

 

Hmmm, never thought of getting it the natural way. We have some good sand around here as well...just have to watch that I don't scoop up a rattler at the same time....:-)

 

warping, with a blaster?? lol maybe it it's an industrial one, with a desiel compressor and a 3/8 nosel.... i've got a 10 cfm, 5hp compressor, and a pot type, pressure feed blaster (i own a fabrication/machine shop) and i've used it on all 3 of my trucks, with no trouble, other then haveing to clean it up afterwards....
i get my sand from the local uap/napa dealer(they deliver for free) and it's produced by shaw resourses...

 

I also have had no problem with sandblasting on an old truck (51 and 52 18 guage) with the small sandblaster that I have. However even though nobody worried about blasting with sand 20 years ago, I would suggest buying Green Monster. At $7 for 80 pounds you can buy a safer (for the lungs) blast material that in specifically 90 grid. I use the stuff over and over again. It takes a lot of blasting to use up a couple of hundred pounds of the stuff . Buy it at a sandblast supply house.

 

The first thing you need to buy is a good dust mask. The dust from some of these sands is hell on your lungs. And you only have one set.
I buy silica sand from the local hardware for my large items. It works great and doesn't leave a lot of dust on thr part.
I use aluminum oxide in my blast cabinet. It seems to work better, to expensive to blast out in the open with it.
I have also had my parts acid dipped and e-coated. The parts come back looking great but its expensive.

 

Take a look at this site: www.sandblaster.com

Just about everything you ever wanted to know about blasting with different abrasives, equipment, etc. I've done my whole 1956 F-250 frame and all my running gear using their medium-grade CrystalGrit. Read their description of the product - what they say is really true. It takes off rust and paint like there's no tomorrow. I must have reused the 300 lbs I originally bought at least 50 times by now. I know that sounds exaggerated but I don't have an automatic recycler so I have a little bit of work each time I recycle and I know I've done it at least 50 times. The crystals are certainly smaller than they were originally but they still clean like gangbusters. I plan to use the fine grade CrystalGrit on my body panels and cab. Take a look at my website for some additional info on how I did the work so far: www.clubfte.com/users/earl/index.html

I did use plain sand (Si02) for the frame rails because I couldn't fit them in my home built 4'x4'x4' blasting cabinet and I didn't want to lose the CrystalGrit after one use outside. After doing the rails, however, I realized that I was catching well over 90% of the pain sand on the 25 x 25 foot plastic sheet I laid down under my outdoor work area. I should have just used the CrystalGrit outside on the rails too since I wouldn't have wasted very much at all.

BTW, if you'd like to build your own big (4'x4'x4') blast cabinet I have a complete set of plans including a description, parts list, prices, and photos. Ken (Payne) is planning on using it for a tech article but I don't see any reason I couldn't e-mail it to you if you wanted it.

As far as a compressor goes, I have a 6 HP gasoline-powered two-stage unit that runs a 1/4" nozzle on my cheapo Sears siphon-feed blast gun in my home-made cabinet at about 85 psi. The siphon unit is not as fast as a pressure unit but the CrystalGrit really speeds up the process. BTW, I found a great way to get long-lasting ceramic nozzles for my gun really cheap. McMaster-Carr (www.mcmaster.com) sells ceramic tubing with the right ID and OD to use as nozzles. I just cut it to length and they work out to something less than $1 per nozzle. The CrystalGrit really chews up anything but a ceramic nozzle so that's a real money saver.

George