I’m using the redline ez50 gun. Part was at room temperature when coated approx 65 degrees.
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Ive been searching around to find a good sandblasting media. I’m just getting started with all this. I’ve just been using an orbital sander, but I have a sandblasting cabinent. I have used it before, with walnut shell media, but it doesn’t really do much on heavy stains or paint. What do all you use?
At work we aluminum oxide the glass bead. We found a product the combines the two. I’ll have to find out the name on Monday. Mostly stainless steel.
I rarely blast parts to prep for powder coat. I soak in Vinegar before welding. Then when I am ready to paint I spray with Iron Phosphate and rinse. Then paint. Now if by some chance I get oil on something I will wipe it off with Acetone or the like.
If I do blast something I just use a media from a box store, made for blasting. There are tons of products to choose from, walnut shells are not aggressive at all.
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For stuff cut on the table, I don’t blast. But, I plan on coating really anything I can of the 3d variety. Wheels, engine parts etc. I will be able to do when my oven gets here.
Glass bead from Harbor Freight or Black Diamond silica from Tractor Supply.
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100 grit white aluminum oxide is my recommendation and is all I use anymore. It’s a good balance between aggressive but not so strong that it damages the surface. It will still allow the part to cover nicely with powder, cerakote, or paint. Air pressure is a bigger factor vs the media grit thru my experience.
Most sand blasting company’s will sell media too so check it out around your neck of the woods. They usually have much better quality media for the same or cheaper than HF. If possible get the white aluminum media versus the black. The black makes more of a mess and gets on everything when the parts come out of the cabinet. It’s like playing in a bag of bbq charcoal.
IMO I’d recommend avoiding the HF media if you can. The stuff I get from my local dealer easily lasts 3 times as long as the HF media I was using for awhile. It doesn’t powder out/break down as easily, and I can run it at significantly higher psi if needed.
I pay $51 per 50 lb bag. I’ll go thru about 100 lbs a month in my cabinet with the abrasive separator and filter tower. It fluctuates depending on what material Im blasting and how impatient I am, but I can get 30-40 hours out of 50 lbs at 85 psi. If I’m in a rush (or the wife is trying to help 
) I’ll kick it up to 105 psi and notice it drops the life of the media by 25% or so.
Just my two cents thou. Hope it helps. Good luck!
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I am curious, about your set up.
Do you change out your media all at once or do you add fresh to it as it beaks down?
Do you run 85 PSI to keep the media from breaking down or so your media is not so aggressive?
What blast cabinet do you have?
Last time I went to Fabtech there was a vender there that sold media , and showed me some type that he said would not eat up things like guns, lens, Etc. I never tried it but seems hard to believe it would cut much and not tear up other things. Never did try it, shipping for that stuff adds up fast.
The surface conditioning tool from HF with the 40 grit wheel will make easy work of it. I hardly use my cabinet now. The guy that fixed our industrial sand blaster at work says to only add as much media to the machine as it takes to do the parts and filling it to capacity only sells more media.
I currently run a Trinco Deluxe 600 CFM system. It’s a 4X3X3 foot cabinet with a media separator unit and a separate filtration tower. It’s fed by an EMAXX Silent Air variable speed 10 HP 39 CFM compressor and an Atlas Copco FD20 refrigerated dryer. It’s a much bigger setup than I ever thought I would need, but as I’ve jumped further into the rabbit hole I seem to have grown into it. I’ve learned to highly embrace the “buy once, cry once” theory regarding equipment-related expenses.
The sandblast system separates the bad media and junk from the cabinet and kicks it to the filter tower. The media doesn’t sit in the bottom of the cabinet like a majority of blast cabinets. Media gets added directly to the separator hopper so I don’t have to change it out.
Before getting this setup, I had a standard sandblast cabinet run by a shop vac and had the media in the bottom. For the majority of the time I had that cabinet, I was using the HF media that would break down, so I would frequently change out the entire cabinet. After getting away from HF stuff I never had to change it out, only add more.
I agree with what @SWomack said about not filling the cabinet up to max capacity. I only kept enough in the cabinet to keep the gun from surging.
The pressure I run largely depends on what’s being blasted and the condition it’s in. A majority of the stuff I finish in-house is done in Cerakote. For example, the aluminum hand guards are done at a bit lower pressure than a 16 gauge HR steel design that I’ve cut out on the table. The aluminum hand guard can pit or bevel the surface at higher pressures when trying to get into tight corners. With steel, it’s not that big of a concern. If something is getting a clear coat finish I etch it at a super low psi before applying the clear.
The stuff I cut on the table will usually go into a hydrochloric acid bath for 24 hours before I blast it, simply to save time and money. Letting acid do the work is easier and doesn’t cost power to run the compressor. Plus I prefer the rounded edge the acid gives to steel. I’ve put Cerakote on stuff straight out of acid but I usually will give it a quick once-over in the blast cabinet.
Sorry I’ve jumped all over in this reply, as the morning meds haven’t kicked in yet. One last thought I have on blast pressures. No doubt it’s faster to blast at higher PSI but it also causes the compressor to run more. The difference is minimal if you’re blasting for 5 minutes, but if you’re doing a handful of things that can add up quickly. So yes blasting at lower pressures saves the media and power, but it’s a bit slower. Time v. Money is a court case that will never be settled.
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Wow Thanks for that response! I am going to read up on the media separator and filtration tower. Are those Trinco?
I take it you do mostly small stuff so dealing with a acid bath would be much easier that large parts.
I use NIC (prismatic) for powder and have looked at Cerakote but don’t make anything requiring this nice of finish. Not that I don’t sometimes dream something up so I can try something new. Just depends how involved it gets.
I really appreciate you taking the time to respond, thanks
Newbie powder coating question. Is it possible to spray powder coat on a piece of painted metal if the bare metal is exposed in an isolated spot for the ground clamp? Will the powder be distributed uniformly?
The case I want to try is painting a base coat on a plate and then dusting with Powder and using a diode laser to selectively cure/melt the powder into a pattern on the plate. I’m looking at the PCS-150 or PCS-250 as for spraying.
Ohhh!!! I like that idea!!
Very cool…keep us posted Tom. If you would!!
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I’ve found that the powder will attract more to the bare spots than the painted ones giving an uneven finish. I would try spraying without the ground and see what happens.
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The powder will stick even if you don’t have the gun turned on (KV set to 0) Wont stick as good but you can get it on there. Keep your gun back and dust on in light coats.
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This could be tricky as you will need to hold the temp for approximately 10 mins
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I powder coated a piece of wood just to see what would happen and with the exception of sap bubbles in a few spots it turned out pretty good. You can do glass and the piece you’re talking about if you get it a little warm 150 first.
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What species of wood?
Pine or spruce it was a 2x4. Guys that own Columbia Coatings were the ones that told me to try it…
I can’t take credit for the Diode Laser curing:
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