Finally! A sunny, warm Spring day, T-shirt weather. I got to work in the shop for a spell
today. Finished assembly on my bead-blasting cabinet; cut two legs with ball casters off
an old TV stand, and bolted them to the left-side legs on the blaster cabinet. With
ball-bearing lawnmower wheels on the other pair of legs, it is now readily mobile. Also
bolted two lengths of 1" square steel tubing to the cabinet, so they extend out a foot to
the left side, and screwed a piece of 3/8" plywood down on top of the overhanging ends.
Gives me a handle to roll it around by, as well as a handy shelf for putting work pieces
on.

I dumped in about a half gallon of fine glass bead abrasive, and climbed aboard the
learning curve. First thing I learned is that Chinese hose clamps are crappy. Both ends of
the internal pressure hose to the gun blew off the barbs where I'd clamped them. Some good
domestic hose clamps cured that.

I'm pretty pleased with its performance. The two 100 watt semi-reflector bulbs work well,
and provide adequate light, and with the shop vac connected to the vent system, the
atmosphere inside the cabinet stays clear enough that I can see my work OK. One unforeseen
difficulty: using it outside, sunlight/sky light shining on the window washes out the view
of the interior. I turned the cabinet so the window faced the sun, and wore a cowboy hat
to shade the part of the window in front of my face. That worked pretty well, but some
sort of light shade over the cabinet would be better.

From time to time, the siphon feed would get plugged by moisture or debris, but simply
blocking the nozzle with a gloved finger, and pulling the trigger on the gun will blow
back the siphon and clear the clog. No biggie. My 5 HP compressor JUST keeps up with the
air demand; stop a session of blasting, and the compressor cycles off a few seconds later.

I managed to clean: an M16 starter, a Weasel intake/exhaust manifold, an M16 governor
body, and a complete brake set for a disc brake Studebaker including calipers, rotors,
dust shields, drums, and backing plates and shoes, etc.

The bead blaster is best for fairly small, intricate parts. Large simple surfaces like the
brake rotors and drums are tedious to do in there. In the end, I laid out the drums,
rotors, dust shields and backing plates on the grass, and went over them with the
pressure-pot sandblaster. That puppy takes rust and paint off large areas quickly, but it
doesn't handle small intricate stuff well, so it really complements the bead blast
cabinet. Any spots on the large parts that I missed with sandblaster, I can touch up in
the cabinet. The calipers cleaned up beautifully in the cabinet, as did all the small
brake hardware. Needless to say, I will open up and clean any glass bead out of the
caliper and wheel cylinders.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way things worked out.

I'm going to have to go over the beadblast cabinet with clear silicone seal or duct tape,
and plug a number of tiny leaks. That glass bead trickles out just like water when it
finds a leak.

Gord (gritty) Richmond