Technical To sandblast my frame or pay a blaster

I have a non hamb vehicle... 72 suburban, with a crusty ohio frame. I decided before big suspension plans I should coat the frame with some good ol por-15. Well luckily I found a little hand blaster in my box from... somewhere and tested a spot.

Well Its going to take at least two solid days of laying on my back on the floor to get it done and that would be the minimum.

Now, theres a local guy who said if I break the bolts loose and bring it to his shop he can get it done in one day and pull the body off to get to the frame for me for $500 ish.

So, opinions? It feels like alot but I really dont want to have to spend my entire Christmas vacation blasting on my back. Anyone had something pro blasted before?

-Webb

 

I media blast and coat an average frame in a single color for 450 - 500. He is doing other work also (removing body etc) so the pricing may be in line.
You should also consider in your cost:
your time, consumables like media and tips and masks and goggles , equipment time, electricity etc etc etc blasting is the sucky part of the job.

 

Bare frame - $ 75.00
Differential 30.00

But he won't pull the body.

 

31Vicky, are you saying the frame blast should cost 75? Im not quite understanding.

 

That's what I've been paying here.
So it would be a no brainier for me.
You could bring your frame up, drop it off in the am and head back home same day.

 

my understanding is that por15 (por stands for paint over rust) is not a good choice for freshly blasted metal.....either scrape off the scale and use the por15 or use a good single stage chassis paint over primer if you blast it...

 

Wow, that is insanely low. Cleveland would be a bit of a haul especially pulling with a powerstroke. Would probably be cheaper but not much.

Guess I need to review the por15 thing then ha.

Since thats the case do you all recommend blasting and coating or just using the por15 and leaving the crust. Luckily the frame isnt really that bad its just sort of rust colored if anything. Im just trying to make it look nice underneath.

 

If somebody is going to blast a 72 suburban frame for $75 I would have it there the next day! Your little blaster will go through that much sand let alone the time.

How many miles from Nashville to Cleveland? 600 miles, well maybe 24 hours on the road is a bit much.

 

If you're going to take it apart anyway, look for another frame if yours is that rusty. After blasting, you'll find out how bad it is and may be throwing good $$ after bad $$.

I had a price of $500 to have the chassis on my Ford done in my driveway. I wire brushed it myself and used VHT paint on it.

 

Let's face it...sandblasting a frame is a bitch and to do it properly you need to remove the body.

The only reason to tackle it yourself is you can't afford to pay someone else to do it,you have that much spare time,if your compressor can keep up with the massive amounts of ait it takes to sandblast and if you have a area that you don't mind turning into beach front property....without the ocean.

You will also need some proper gloves,hood and a quality respirator...silicious is serious and will cause lung damage and can kill.

Personally,I have done a lot of sandblasting and I will farm out big stuff I can't get in my blasting cabinet now. HRP

 

Your understanding and what you've stated are different than the manufactures tech sheet.

http://www.por15.com/POR-15-Technical-Information_ep_62.html

POR-15 APPLICATION PROCEDURES

Surface preparation:
Rusted surfaces are best; seasoned metal and sandblasted surfaces are also good.

To coat smooth metal surfaces:
Use POR-15 METAL-READY to prepare surface before painting. Surface must be dry and free of grease, oil, or other foreign substances. Use of 'rust converter' products is not recommended as they may affect bonding of POR-15 to metal. POR-15 likes to adhere to surfaces with 'tooth' rather than smooth, glossy surfaces.

 

If you want it really nice and something more than driver quality, blasting is the only way.

If you want to make it better, cleaner, nicer than a 40 year old Ohio frame, you can do a really nice job with a needle scaler. It will de crud and de scale almost the entire frame. There will be a few places you can't reach. You won't have to remove the body, just block it up on the chassis about 6" or so to get the top. All the flat areas can be a little better with a grinder. It's a lot of work but it goes a long way towards preservation and a major upgrade in appearance.

 

I did most of my own sand blasting on my project because I was concerned about potential warping of the sheet metal by the local blasters. But when it came time to do the frame. I hauled it a few miles to a guy with a commercial blaster. He had it done in a couple of hours and it only cost $200. I figured that was a bargain as it would have taken me at least all day with my little pot blaster. He also used a product called clean blast that cuts a good kurf in the metal. This will make for good adhesion of the paint products later on. If you plan on doing any welding I would not recommend painting any of the potential weld areas with POR 15. The stuff is really hard to sand or grind.

 

Needle scaler works real well I have used them and they will knock a lot of crap loose. if I were going to use por-15 anyway that is what I would do.

Another option is to use a commercial grade power washer. They rent pretty cheap and will blast a lot of crap off. The down side blasting is that it will not remove caked on grease if anything it will drive it deeper into the pores of the metal, so the frame needs to be power washed anyway, that and the sand gets into anything and everything.

 

I took my crusty 34 ford bare frame over to the local foundry where they blasted it to perfection for a hunnert bucks.

 

I've been quoted $200-$500 for the same frame at different places. Even at the high end, it is still better than doing it yourself. Blasting a frame is an awful job.

 

I agree with 31 Vicky...a coarse sandblast is an excellent base for the por-15. As an added protection, I would use the metal-ready mentioned also. You could treat the frame with metal ready after sandblasting, and por-15 all areas except where you are welding. The metal-ready puts a coating of zinc phosphate on the metal which will help keeping the non-por 15'd areas from rusting till you get the welding done. Probably more than any other product I've used, following the manufactures instructions is crucial. Not following them will result in the reasons why others have posted about problems with por-15. Follow the instructions and you won't have a problem.
When I did the underside of my car, not on a rotiserie, but the body hoisted up in the air about 18" over the frame, I spent 10 days scraping, sandblasting and finishing. I was also doing the underside of the car. I went thru 16 face masks and 600 lbs. of #6 sand. It was the worst 10 days I've ever spent! If you're talking about a little spot blaster for this, It ain't gonna work. At minimum you'll need a 40# pressure blaster and a big ass compressor to keep up with it. I've got an 80 gal, 5 hp compressor, and I was spending alot of time waiting for the compressor to catch up.
Rich

 

If your 72 frame is rusty, I don't see the 72 body bolts coming out without breaking. When the bolts break, (especially the front 4 cab bolts) you get to cut into the cab supports to replace the bolts, that is a big snowball waiting to happen.
Then there is the matter of everything else that has to come off to lift the body, not an easy project. Then are you leaving the drive train on the frame to be filled with sand from the blasting?
There is a big difference between lifting the body, and having a bare frame, the bare frame is the best way to blast something. If the guy is going to remove everything and blast the frame and make it mobile afterwards, and include the material cost, you should have it there already. That's quite a bargain. What I suspect your $500 gets you is lifting the body as far up as it comes, blasting everything, blowing it off, setting the body back down, and having you pick it up. Probably not a bad price for that either. Getting the excess sand out of everything will be your problem.

If all you want to do is make it look pretty, pressure wash it, needle the accessible surfaces, and POR it. Dissembling and blasting a 72 anything, that has lived in a rusty environment, is a disaster waiting to happen, unless its going to be a ground up effort. Gene

 

if somebody is blasting full sized frames for 75, they wont be doing it long. Blasting is not easy and a full sized frame takes 1-3 hours, some are worse than others. around here I can get 125 per hour easy, and Lord knows there is property overhead, labor, safety gear, equipment and equipment consumables, media materials, compressors, fuel etc etc, it all adds up and 75 just doesn't cover it no way no how. You might want to make a phone call to confirm before you haul it.

 

Times like this, I can really appreciate a unibody car

 

Just pay the man and move on to the next step. Bob

 

POR-15 works very well on freshly blasted metal. But if you go to all the trouble to blast it then you should just coat it with epoxy primer.

 

our local guy gets $50/hr. it's a good deal & he does a good job

 

I have my own sandblaster that I use for smaller parts, and blasted the whole body on the 42 Chevy thast I am building, however the frame I took to a shop that has an indoor blaster that uses steel shot to do the frame. If I remember right they charged $200 for the frame and all the control arms for the front suspension. That was money well spent. I spent the better part of 2 days to blast the body and under the body plus you don't have the mess of the sand. I had a big mess doing the body. Pay the shop and save yourself headaches

 

God I hate needlescaling.
-Pat

 

Steam clean and pressure wash the thing to death, then brush paint the por 15. It will come out fine. Test a spot to see. Much cheaper, and no hoses/plastic/rubber parts get eaten up by the sand. A Burb of that era is not really worth doing a frame off.

 

I have a media blasting service I just did a 72 c10 the bare frame in a rotisserie took 3.5 hours for that . I charged him $550 for that , the trailing arms and some other small stuff . my prices are a little higher than the mainland usa due to shipping .

 

HE KNOWS!! I've done it with a small hand held blast gun on my 48's frame using a big compressor with an 80 gallon tank that couldn't stay up with the blaster. Along with eating up a lot of time it also makes one big mess if you do it at home and then there is the sand in every place in your body that you don't want it unless you have some really good protective gear.
The last quote I had here on the frame for my 48 was 50.00 an hr with a 1/2 hr minimum fee That is with no grease or oil on the frame when I take it there. That isn't a problem with my frame as it's been sitting out in the weather bare for the past 20 years. My problem is getting the work done and getting it painted right after I have it blasted as I don't have a place to keep it indoors at the moment.

 

Have you shopped around to see if you can do better than $500? Must be quite a few places in Nashville.
Let's say you get a quote for $400. Subtract your do it yourself costs for consumables-say $100 and the net cost is $300.
That long weekend of grueling labor doing it yourself to save $300 could be better spent doing other more approachable tasks such as chassis or body work.

 

Just did my frame ,front end ,sub frame ,and cab on my COE . It took 3300 lbs. of sand and about ten hours using a big blaster . Nasty work and I will never do it again . Pay the guy and do other work . I used EMS rust paint and it was great and very hard when finished . Pictures on my build tread , 42 GMC COE bike hauler . Good luck !