Anyone here purchase a Harbour Freight 'Blast Cabinet Reclaimer Kit' /dust and loose media collector? (94275-OVGA). I don't buy much from HF and it's a special order so I'm looking for input if it works good, or should I put my cash towards another recommended unit. Thank you in advance
That thing is only meant to be used with aluminum oxide, gl*** bead, walnut shells, etc......not silica based media.
I have a HF blast cabinet that I just use playsand in, seems to work well but you should use a respirator when using it to keep from inhaling the silica......As fas as a reclaimer, I'd just fab up a connector and use a shop vac to catch the blowby....use a dust free filter like you would for picking up drywall dust but still use a respirator of some sort or a good fitting dust mask....
I have the blast cabinet and would recommend not spending the money on this. Buy a small shop vac and use the filter mentioned by 40chev. Would not recommended the play sand but more along the line of gl*** beed. You can purchase it from Tractor supply or Fastenal and plenty more as you may already know.
someone built one ,at the h.a.m.b.,i am pretty sure,out of a 55 gal.drum,i cant find it.could have been just a blast cabinet.might be of some help to someone wanting a blaster.does any else remember where it was?
Uh, this IS the HAMB! This what I think you were remembering: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144777&highlight=tech+blast
Man...I had one of those for a year or so...tried every thing mentioned to try to make it work...still a peice of ****. I splurged and bought a "scratch-n-dent" sale snap on unit. ( at half off, it was still well over a grand.) I wouldn't trade this thing for the world. Deep basin (meaning you're not constantly creating dust in the box) BIG inside (so you can blast awkward parts) and the evacuation system actually WORKS (if you keep clean filters in it- we need to replace ours about every 6 months- and it sees a about 10 hours of work a week.) If you can swing it, buy the biggin. you will thank me later.
I have a smaller blast cabinet with a siphon gun for trinket parts and my shop vac works good with it. I am finishing up a 6' wide cabinet I built to fit bigger parts, mainly rear end housings. I have a good sized pressurized blaster that kicks up some serious dust so I doubt a shop vac with keep up. I think I'll steer clear of Harbour Freight and step up to a real evac system. I have been staying away from silica sand and have had good luck with, if I recall, copper slag media. Thanks
On kinda the same subject, whats the deal on these cheap plastic cabinets not working? I bought one at a yard sale last summer for 10 bucks, that still had a Northern tool $329 sticker on it,guy said it wouldn't work....right Well, He wasn't kidding, I can't make the ****in' thing work either. Air in, media in hopper, siphon tube in, NOTHING out the gun,..WTF? Anybody explain this, is it a ****ty gun or what. Gl*** bead was the media I had in it.
make sure the siphon hose isnt plugged, you will need at least 90 psi and minimum of a 5 h.p compressor and 40-60 gal tank to run it......also make sure the tip isnt too big..........
If your siphon hose is only a single tube sticking into the media you might try attaching another tube of similar size to it. Make sure the attached tube is long enough that the top end is well out of the media. This will allow fresh air to be ****ed in relatively close to the siphon tube, the siphon tube should siphon the air from the attached tube as it's the path of least resistance and it will bring media along with it. My brother gave me an old siphon tube blaster and I couldn't get it to do a thing. I bought he HF unit which has a tube like I described and it gave me the idea to attach an air feed tube to the siphon tube. It worked. There is ALOT of good info on blast cabinets and peripherals on www.garagejournal.com
I agree, the siphon tube is likely the culprit. You can get a pdf file with photos here. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3577681.html I notice the TPtools version has the end crimped unlike the one in the patent photo. http://www.tptools.com/pl/Images,6442-TUBE_L,140,328_Skat-Blast-Pickup-Tubes.html
The nozzle has to be adjusted correctly too. If yours has the normal Pipe T with two hose barbs and the machined br*** fitting that holds the nozzle in with a set screw make sure that the end of the nozzle tube is positioned correctly in relation to the pickup tube's side of the T. You have to experiment to get the best flow but it does improve the flow of abrasive. When I was teaching we had a big Davis sandblast cabinet out of Oregon, it had a good dust collection system on it that used a cloth bag as the filter and I doubt if it would p*** air quality regs today.
i bought the cyclone plastic cabinet, the only thing that ****s is it has a plastic window (which i will change to gl***) and the vacuum.
i built my own blast cabinet, it something like the one in the pic only the top is made out of an old crate, i use my pressure pot and just made the bottom of the cabinet so it dumps back into the pot, at the bottom of the funel is a screen with holes just a little smaller then the nozel at the end of my blasters hose, seems to work just fine, the cabinet cost me about $5 to built as i just scrounged everything. the pressure pot blaster was around $400, but if i need to blast outside i can just wheel it out from under the cabinet and go.
When you convert your sight plain window over to gl***,position a sheeting of br*** screen over it(on the work area side)to save the gl***.This will prolong the life of your gl*** and doesn't detract from your view much at all. Please use a breathing respirator with any blasting unit.Tools don't care if they hurt you! Gl*** bead and silica/sand will put your d#ck in the dirt in a miserable way!
Adding a little more,,, like, several Hambers, i built my own shop blaster that wound up looking like a spittin image of the one budd has pictured. I fooled around with several different styles of suction tubes and finally broke down and bought a siphon tube from TP Tools that was designed for these type blasting cabinets. One thing you really MUST DO is to properly size the air nozzle to your available available air supply (scfma). I did a little back yard engineering and made my own footfeed for the air by fabbing something similar to what they sell and using an extra blow nozzle I had laying around.
one thing i want to add to my blaster is an air cylinder to the sand flow valve at the bottom on the pressue pot, right now i have a ball valve at the end of the hose, when i shut it off the sand continues to flow out of the pot, when i start blasting again it takes awhile for that extra sand to clear the hose.
Can't help with the original question, but can offer advice for a couple of problems mentioned in the thread- Plastic windows- Get clear film for overhead projectors. Cut and tape it together with clear tape to fit the inside of your gl***. Replace periodically and will make the window last a long long time. Feed problems can also be vent problems. Every bit of air coming out the tip has to vent out the cabinet somehow. If your siphon hose leaks air, it won't pull sand, use a clamp at the gun. For the at-home blaster, invest in engineered media instead of regular old sand. The results will speak for themselves, and the dust isn't as terrible for ya. good luck
Just wondering.. I have used "play sand" in a portable "back pack" blaster and just let the stuff become part of the back lawn. Are children allowed to play in sand boxes without wearing respirators these days? I ride a bike on a beach bike trail 2-3 times a week and wear a bandana to pullover my nose cowboy style if the wind is blowing. I know that's not as good as a respirator, but the cops look at me funny enough with just the bandana. I stay away from Red or light Blue bandanas because they are someone else's "colors" here in the Long Beach...
Slightly old thread, but it's a safety thing, so... Plain silica (sand) is harmless, yes. The problem is that it shatters into incredibly small pieces when it slams into things at high speed, like when you're blasting with it. Breathing crystallized silica particles isn't just a little dangerous, it can be downright fatal. The use of silica sand for sandblasting is actually banned in many countries, and NIOSH strongly recommends against its use in the US. There is no OSHA-approved respirator in existence certified for silica blasting, the only approved protection is a supplied-air system. Facemask respirators and even HEPA filters can't filter down small enough. And that's the problem. The particles are so small that even your body can't rid them from your lungs the way it can expel normal particles. They're like tiny little sharp pieces of gl*** embedding themselves in your lung tissue. So your lungs react by growing little hardened nodules around each particle. Too many of these nodules literally chokes off your lungs and is called silicosis. Just two hours exposure can be enough to kill with enough concentration in the air. 'Blacklung', the disease miners suffer from, is actually caused by the free silica that is churned up into the air by the rocks they displace, not the carbon in the coal! Once you're through sandblasting, the dust settles on the ground and in crevices in the work area, even on the gr*** outside, posing a hazard to other workers in the area, family members, and even pets for a long time afterwards. Plain sand isn't the problem, the submicroscopic shattered results are.
There is an outfit in Ohio that is real good to deal with, next day shipping, etc. and has all kinds of blast cabnets and parts. www.tptools.com
Put a filter on to filter out the moisture. I had the same problem with mine. Mine worked fine for the first five min then it went to ****. Put the filter on and now it works fine. I also bought a cheap magnetic base shop light and stuck it to the inside top of the cabinet. I also hooked up a shop vac and it keeps the dust down so you can see what your working on.
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