My budget will not allow me to fork out 800 to 1200 for a shop to blast my car. I have now started to research doing it myself. It looks like a pressurized blater can be purchased for around $100. Im looking for any details on those who have gone this route. Any advised on type of blaster, how to set up booth, and how much media is going to be needed.

Ever thought about taking the car in and getting it chemically stripped? Blasting a whole car at home can turn into a nightmare very quickly. First off I suggest a pretty serious compressor, some where around 15cfm@90 psi. Next you will get media everywhere, and I mean everywhere. No matter how well you seal up a temp booth, you will be finding media every where in your garage for the next year. Also it is very hard to get all the media out of the car, and the nooks and crannies.

Now for media, glass bead should take care of all your needs. Plus it is pretty inexpensive.

Good Luck
Steve

Eric. I have blasted my car in my garage. This is what I have learned.

First of all : DO wear protection for your eyes, ears and lungs!!!! Cover all of your bare body parts!

Have patience, I have been blasting for over 600 hours to do the entire car in and out. The underbody coating is rather hard to blast of, it's to soft. You will have to cover the blasted sheet metal within 8 hours, or surface rust will (re)appear.I wrote things down on a webpage http://www.si.hhs.nl/~rob/experience.html

As far as media dipping, I have no experiences of my own, but have read many times to watch out for the chemicals that might stay behind and eat the metal in the long run.

Hope this helps.

Rob

You've been blasting for 600 hours................you have to be kidding................??!!??!!

Even if you were only making $3.00 an hour it would have paid for you to have someone else do it..........!!

That's dedication!!

Originally posted by Rumblin70SS:

That's dedication!! And crazy smile.gif

I guess no one likes to be called crazy, except for the crazy people perhaps, so I feel I have to set things a bit straight.

The blasting in my case involved rearranging parts to create enough room to work, the blasting itself, cleaning the media, cleaning up the area at the end of the day and spraying the part afterwards. Based upon a 10 hours working day, this means 10% overhead and 10% painting, thus 80% blasting.

Like I said on my webpage I bought a more professional compressor somewhere (2/3) along the way. This one helped me to work almost 3 times faster than the old hobby compressors. Reviewing the timeframe I think I could have done the job in 350 hours, if I would have started out with the right compressor.

Based on the 80% this means roughly 280 hours of blasting for everything and I mean everything : body and doors including the inside, chassis, trunk lid, hood, tail units, suspension, rear axle, all of the big and small brackets, seat frames, etc.

So, yes this is crazy. In hindsight I will not do it again, ever. Perhaps Eric, like me, has no clue as to what is involved in blasting an entire car in a limited area and without the professional tools.

On the other hand if you start something you should finish it. Without that in mind it is alomst impossible to restore a car ..... I think.

Rob

Like myself,you may have a local guy who has a mobile truck. He will blast at your place. My guy also does it at his house which of course is where I took my 67 EC. He did everything execpt the main body panels. Charged me $250. I paint stripped the outer panels,hood,fenders,etc.
Knew the floors were so-so and after he was done blasting the rust away had swiss cheese floors.Oh well. Have one of those $100 units you are thinking about. It will take you forever,media will be everywhere and your neighbors will hate you.

So whats wrong with a lot of hard work.It took me apx.16 hours to sandblast my 67 frame.thats how I found two that would have gone unoticed.Now that there welded and the frame is painted it was worth it.I did all the blasting outside.sand blends in real well in thr ground .Black beuity dosnt. :D Go for it ...Ed

I've done my share of blasting on my 70 and will never do it again. By the time you add up the time, materials and tools, plus what it does to your health, it just isn't worth it. Even when you wear protective gear, some of it still gets through................

I'm doing a Corvette now and had a local blaster do a whole carload of parts..............cost me $120.00 and it was done in a week. The other way, using sand it would have taken me a month of weekends to complete and it would have still been $50.00 in materials. I'd rather save my health and work 3-4 hours of overtime and have it done without all that trouble..............

Regardless of a persons ability, and desire to perform as much of their own resto as possible, some things are best farmed out...

Thanks for all the input. I'll do some shopping around first for someone else to deal with the mess. If I cant find a good deal, I have plenty of time on my hands.

You did not mention what type of media you will be using for your blasting. Blasting exterior panels with sand like the hood, trunk lid doors etc will leave them so warped even an experienced body man would have problems straighten them.

The pressure from the blaster mixed in with the sharp edges of the sand will create tons of heat that will leave that metal warped before you know it :eek:

If you dont believe me i can email pics of a 67 GTO that a guy blasted using sand, you know its F***ed up when you can see waves and buckles in bare blasted steel graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Using soda or plastic is a different story but using sand is like a death sentence for sheetmetal.

We used a blaster once to blast a chevy truck to bare steel cost around 450, this was using plastic beads not sand. If you go the blaster method MAKE sure they something like plastic, soda, walnut shells, or even glass beads...Eric

I can not tell you the amount of cars or panels I have seen ruined or heard about it on these forums. We are not talking "darn I have some more work" kinda damage. I am talking " TOTALLY DISTROYED THROW IT AWAY kinda damage. Eric is being optomistic with "even an experienced body man would have problems straighten them". I have seen damage that a MASTER at fabrication and metal finishing would simply make new panels instead of repairing sandblast damage. I am THAT serious about the damage that can and will most likely occur when sandblasting sheet metal.

The biggest misconception is that heat is doing all the damage. Heat plays a very small part. That is why you can't simply turn down the pressure and go slower. What is really occuring is (a fellow forum reader was nice enough to email me with this information not long ago) the sand particle hitting the surface is putting a little microscopic dent in the metal. Now imagine this happening hundreds of thousands of times over the panel. The molecules in the metal are getting pushed around and "enlarging" the top surface of the metal. Do you want to take the chance on doing this to your car?

I use my spot sand blaster all the time at work. It is a very useful tool. But as far as my large blaster, I hardly ever use it anymore. It just doesn't make sense to me. I have a sand blaster guy here in town who will do all that dirty work for a reasonable price. I drop it off, and pick it up all done, no mess no bother.

By the way, this pro sand blaster totally ruined a 1928 Buick door for me. It was perfectly straight and I only needed "some" of the paint and rust roughed up so I could prime it and paint it to make a display for a sales show I was doing. The guy did as I asked, but some how he warped the door. It was TOTALLY DISTROYED THROW IT AWAY kinda damage. I really didn't care about the part so I took a torch with a rose bud tip and heated and shrank the panel until it was "sorta" in shape. I then mixed up about a gallon of plastic filler and "poured" it on. Shaped it and then put a good application of polyester primer on it. I have to say, the darn thing looked pretty good, but I sure wouldn't want to do that to a door going on a car.

I feel that powder coating is the only way on "hard parts" like the rad support and chassis componants. Even inner fenders and things like that are so easy to have powder coated. I have a place that is so reasonable I just couldn't imagine sandblasting and painting things like that. I know that is all personal preferance but if you think about your time is SO valuable out in the garage, why not make it as easy as possible to get something REALLY done on that car.

I was wondering about the frame. Most of it is surface rust. So I was wondering about using a air sander to sand it in the easy areas and using a small sand blaster gun to shoot the areas I could'nt get to. I have one question how bad does the sand affect the frame surface finish. Also what is the best media for removing rust with the least about of surface damage. The way I figure if the blasting damages the frame to the point ill have to sand it aftewards why not just sand as much as i can reach and blast the rest.

What do you guys thinK?