Cascade Crew

alloy · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 8:14 pm Post subject: New shop toys

I picked up a Harbor Freight sand blast cabinet on Friday and spend most of the day Saturday putting it together. I loaded it with my glass beads and gave it a try. To say the least I was disappointed in how well it worked, or should I say didn't work.

My original plan was to get the cabinet and give it a try, and if it didn't work well convert it over to a pressure blasting system. This morning I got their 40lb. pressure blaster and modified the cabinet for the pressure setup. Wow..........what a difference. I did an old pair of large jack stands in about 10 minutes. I switched to 80 grit sand for those.

I also picked up powder coat gun a couple of week ago. Now I'm looking for things to blast and powder coat Very Happy

chevymad · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 8:53 pm Post subject:

Sweet isn't it? You'll be wishing you had a bigger oven, and eventually a different powder gun. My craftsman gun finally quit and I bought a harbor freight unit. It's much nicer to use, though seems to go through more powder.

I use the blast cabinet at work. It's filled with glass bead. That stuff is definatly not very aggressive. Many things it won't even touch at all.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 4:12 am Post subject:

...I have stuff I'd like to have powder coated. Very Happy

alloy · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 4:56 am Post subject:

Yes it is sweet Smile

. I brought a part I coated gloss black to work this morning and everyone couldn't believe I did it at home.

I picked up a full size oven for $50 this weekend. It's much easier than the toaster oven even for small parts. I need to figure out a good way to hang the parts. I've got some small "S"hooks but they don't work all that well.

For now the Craftsman gun works ok. I'm just doing small parts, but I can see a need for a better gun for larger parts.

DBL_TKE:

My Craftsman gun was only $40 off Amazon, and the toaster oven was $10. I bet even you can powder coat parts Pokey pokey

Twilightoptics · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:37 am Post subject:

Glass bead is perfect for parts cleanup. It doesn't gouge the material like sand does.

If your pressure is too high with glass bead you'll break the beads rather than clean the part. I run about 40-45psi. Excellent for aluminum and gasket goo.

alloy · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:20 am Post subject:

I do have to watch my pressure. I've got an 80 gallon Devilbiss 2 stage compressor and the first thing I did was pop the safety valve on the pressure pot. I thought I had the pressure set low enough, but guess not.

When I bought my glass beads I got to taking to the guy and turns out he has a 72 Chevelle sitting in his garage. He said no more than 80 psi with the glass beads, and also said a pressure blaster was 3 times more efficient than a suction unit. He was right on that one, or it could be the Harbor Frieght pickup tube and gun is total crap. Either way I'm much happier with the pressure blasting setup.

I had a T56 tail housing come in last week that I needed to modify and it was so corroded from salt spray I couldn't even work on it.
I had to borrow someone's bead blaster to clean it. I don't want to be in the position again where I have to borrow like that. Now I don't have to worry about it Smile

alloy · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:52 pm Post subject:

Just did this valve cover in my blast cabinet. Took about 20 mins to get in all the nooks and crannies. The cabinet works great now that I've converted it over to a pressure blaster system. I used 80 grit sand on these.

The only problem I have just discovered is my 6.5 hp shop vac pulls a lot of my sand out into the vacuum. I had some other junk in the bottom I'd sucked up, so no way to reclaim the sand. I'm wondering if I can make some kind of separator so I won't lose so much sand. I'd bet I lost about 10lbs just doing a couple of parts.

These covers are magnesium and are cast. I was going to coat them gloss black, but they are so rough I ordered some black wrinkle powder instead. I hope that will cover up most of the imperfections in the covers.

RSFreak · Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:09 pm Post subject:

That looks great! I've always liked the 'Vette center bolt valve covers. I always thought they were made of plastic.

BluFbdy · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 12:59 am Post subject:

alloy · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:04 pm Post subject:

I got my wrinkle powder in Tues night and worked on coating the one cover last night. I did a little more sand blasting on it, and wiped it down with acetone. I'm still using my Craftsman gun so I needed to preheat the cover before coating. I heated the cover up to 375 deg and opened the oven and was amazed at how much out gassing that was happening.
You could see little puffs of smoke coming out of the cover, so I left in in for about an hour before coating it.

It came out fantastic. There was one bubble, but it was where the emblem goes so no big deal. I took it to work and the hole shop came over to look at it. The pic does not do it justice.

alloy · Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:42 pm Post subject:

I decided to upgrade my blasting cabinet. I "stole" this one for $300 Very Happy

aaron_sK · Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:40 pm Post subject:

I'll say you did. Cool

alloy · Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 6:38 pm Post subject:

I did a tail housing today in about 15 mins. It looks fantastic. I used glass beads on it.

After I modify this housing for a speedometer drive, I'm shipping it to Kanmantoo, South Australia.

My little business has went international Very Happy

aaron_sK · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:58 pm Post subject:

Hey now, those Aussies are all about speed parts. Those Borg Warner's will be returning from whence they came. Laughing