Posted by gmharris [71.105.36.203] on Monday, March 03, 2014 at 18:28:57 :
In Reply to: pressure washer sand blaster. posted by 47dodge [216.81.94.71] on Monday, March 03, 2014 at 14:30:55 :
There is nothing like media blasting for cleaning metal. But, you will use thousands of pounds of media to do an entire truck and you will create quite a mess. Do you have 20 or 30 bags of media stacked up somewhere?
Professional blasters recover the media and use it again. Also, you will need at least a 10 horsepower compressor to blast continuously with a decent sized blast rig.
I tried a couple different blast units including the Harbor Freight pressure rigs. They might be O.K. for small jobs, but not for complete trucks.
I bought a used semi-commercial rig for $125.00 from Craigs List. It is about four times faster than a Harbor Freight rig and worked a lot better, but it still has all the other drawbacks of media blasting. The key is the nozzle. The ball valve nozzle on the Harbor Freight unit is very mediocre.
I've never used the wet blaster conversion for pressure sprayers. It would be nice if they worked well. Maybe, give it a try. If it doesn't work, I'd just take the parts to a blaster in batches as needed.
I'll never bast a whole truck myself again. And, don't count on getting the truck done in one day.