Carneys Point Township, NJ
Quoted from cal50:If you are buying a blaster or blasting cabinet you need to size the gun nozzle to your compressor CFM output. The cheap Harbor Freight cabinet works pretty well with a replacement blast gun and vacuum system. The Harbor freight cabinet is pretty good once set up properly. Replace the junk gun that comes with it for one of these:
http://www.tptools.com/USA-Cabinet-Gun-and-Pickup-Tube-Upgrade-Kit,2320.html?b=d*8026
When you put the cabinet together get a couple caulking gun size tubes of RTV silicone and use it on all joints and bolts. Doing this and using a suction system the media stays in the cabinet. A shop vac with one of these hooked up works very good :
http://www.oneida-air.com/inventoryD.asp?item_no=AXD001004&CatId={6EE79B16-EB63-43E7-8F30-1E06240A24A4}
The dust separator saves the shop vac from being burned up from abrasive or plugged filters. For general blasting glass beads handle most clean up tasks and leaves a satin finish. Its not as aggressive as some other abrasives and that's good. If you want something more abrasive TSC / Tractor supply sells garnet which cuts like aluminum oxide and Black-beauty which is coal slag abrasive.
You can catch the cabinet on sale and use a 20% off coupon for a better deal.
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately my cab is already assembled and I don't really feel like breaking it down to add the silicon, even though it would be a huge improvement. Your cab in the pic above looks similar to mine except it looks like yours has a better light. What brand is it? I might just sell mine on CL and find a nicer model. The one from Enco looks nice. I will look into the upgraded gun and separator.
Rich
Sana'a
