I'm shopping cabinets. One thing I've been told repeatedly is to keep the media separate for stainless steel or else I'll get carbon steel into the stainless steel and the stainless will rust. Is there any truth to that? I consulted one my gurus...he told me he once talked to an engineer that was convinced it was true but, when asked about the science, "crickets". "These “experts” would have you believe that 90-100 PSI would embed carbon steel fragments into stainless steel. If that were true, how the hell can rubber blast gloves possibly protect your hands?" He's got me on that one. The only blasting I've done is with glass beads on stainless steel and aluminum oxide on other metals and polymers.

I've been thinking that I need two cabinets. One for stainless steel and one for everything else but, that's 2x the price. Or, change the medium as needed.

never heard of that, I personally don't think it is possible. I use aluminum oxide media to blast steel guns and blue them, if the aluminum were to embed itself into the steel, you would see it the the bluing, never has happened to me

Maybe Brandon can chime in, he does a lot of media blasting

We blast aircraft parts on mcchord all the time with one cabinet. If there was truth to what you say I would hope the Air Force would have a special process. They love special processes. However what you say doesn't sound crazy. As far as a cabinet goes, I bought a small one from harbor freight and intend on building a larger one out of the parts from the small one. It has not happened yet but maybe one day. As far as media I always used black beauty. It worked great for car parts and was cheap. Not sure what we use on base but I'll find out.

I would be willing to bet that at some microscopic level there is some contamination. However for most applications here in the real world its nothing i worry about or have ever had problems associated with cross contamination

I think when working with stainless you would want to pickle the part after working on it.

If you want to build a cabinet like mine I'd be glad to help.


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Pickle a part? I have to look that up. When we blasted our stainless pistols in Idaho, it was only with sand.

Passivate.

Pickle is a term, but usually used for rolled mild steel. But you can pickle stainless.

https://www.celcoinc.com/what-is-pickli ... ssivation/

Triple rinse after.

Next question.

How do you discern the hose connections? I'm thinking I'll have a freestanding cabinet and a smaller table stop cabinet with a different media but, I want to have all the same connection types. Anything in particular I need to look out for?

"m" type connectors, or better "universal" fitting connector.

Here's the pvc we talked about, couldn't post it in the PM

[attachment=DREADI PVC.jpg[/attachment]

Perfect. Thank you.




On the matter of air for a floor standing cabinet....I wasn't expecting them to need a compressor that runs on 240v. Is this standard? Of the two cabinets that I've been considering, one specifies 7-20 cfm @ 80 psi and the other 14 cfm @ 90-100psi. From the information I've gathered, this is about normal and requires a a 220v compressor.

I've got an actually decent harbor freight standing cabinet.
I've used everything from glass beads to carborundem.
Considering what I use it for, cheap ass aluminum oxide is working fine and cleans everything I toss in it. If I'm powder coating lightly I prefer fine glass beads. If I'm blasting rusted up heads, course carborundum pounds the shit outta it.
Found the biggest concern is the vacuum. Some good shop vac doesn't cut it. Best you can buy with paper filter AND large an smaller foam filter to go over paper filter.
I've burned up two really good Craftsman shop vacs by either media getting into mtr, or mtr over speeding because filter was plugged within a minute an needed to get job done so ignored it and just cracked open the door.
Get a cheaper blast cabinet, and a really good vacuum.

My compressor is rated at 7.3 cfm @ 90 psi and runs on 120. I'd say for what you will be doing that will be plenty, seemed to work fine when you came over last.

It's on my list to get a 240v compressor now that my shop is wired, but it's not urgent. It's only when I'm blasting big stuff that I have to wait for the pump to catch up.

I've noticed there's a quite a range in prices on the cabinets. Polymer, welded, You-bolt-it-together cabinets. Bench tops are tempting but a waste as a primary because I have to at least be able to fit a barreled action inside the cabinet.

On the top of air, I have to be well above the minimum or else I'll have a compressor constantly running. Yes, your was working well when I was using it. It was also located outside The only quiet air compressor I've heard are air-brush specific compressors so I'm not expecting a 30g to be at a whisper level but, I also don't want a loud motor running in a small space on a regular basis.

I've seen guys put them in sheds outside. I will probably do something like that if I ever get a bigger compressor.