Blast Cabinet

[Aussie Mike]

Hi All,

Saturday morning I went down to Radum in Tullamarine. These guys have a bunch of machinery and stuff at discount prices. A dangerous place for me to visit if I want to leave with my wallet intact.

I left there about $300 poorer but with a Blast cabinet and a couple of bags of media packed into the back of the LandRover. I've been wanting a decent sized blast cabinet for years but they've always been a bit to pricey for me to justify buying one. This one is a beaut for the money.



I made a couple of mods to it to better suit me. It was a bit low and I'd be bent over to use it and I reckon my back would suffer. I welded up a frame and added some castors under it. This lifted the whole thing 5" which puts it at the perfect height for me. It also lets me wheel it round the workshop to put it away when not in use. The frame also stiffens the whole thing up as the legs are a bit flimsy in my opinion.

One of the jobs I've been working on is fixing up my wheels. I'd changed the front wheel hubs to a Ford stud patern to match the rear. I decided to re use the centers out of the old rear wheels on the front. These had been clear coated and were looking a bit tired so I used the blast cabinet to strip them. The plan was to get the wheel centers ceramic coated like the side pipes and I wanted to make sure the surface was going to be OK for coating.



Once I blasted them I was really impressed with the finish. I used course garnet for the blasting media and the wheel centers turned out like a raw sand casting. The clear coat came off easily. After looking at the finish for a bit I decided I really liked it and re assembled one of the wheels. The center kind of looks like the finish on the old magnesium halibrands, sort of matt and grey. It has grown on me and I'm going to leave them that way.

I'll see how they go with brake dust and dirt but I can always strip them again and paint them.

Here's the surface finish



Here's a finished front wheel



The rear wheels took a bit more work. The guy that built them left a lot of grinding marks where he'd cleaned up the casting. This is OK if the centers are going to be painted but too a bit more work for the finish I wanted.

Here's the before



Here's the finished wheel. The Garnet removed the linishing marks and brought them back to a smooth cast surface to match the front.



I should have bought one of these cabinets years ago. It's so much cleaner and more effective than the old bucket fed sand blaster I have. With the vacume cleaner connected up do dust extraction it keeps the media cleaner and there's no need for a respirator.

Cheers