Sand blasting wooden rafter ??

Kmp259 · Jun 5, 2018

Looking at buying a old building and the realtor said they were thinking about sand blasting the rafter......

I never heard of this??

Also he commented on Silicone roof.....never heard of that either.....??

I must have led a sheltered life for a while.....any input would be appreciated.

KMP259

theoldwizard1 · Jun 5, 2018

Sand blasting, no. Dry ice blasting (solid CO2) to remove mold, yes.

Your realtor sounds like they are full of ****.

Musicinabottle · Jun 5, 2018

They do make silicone roofing in a bucket.

rlitman · Jun 5, 2018

Sand blasting wood creates a dramatic grainy pattern, as it selectively etched the summer rings.

Silicone roofing is a newish thing, but is very real.

RivennHewn · Jun 5, 2018

We blasted a whitewashed ceiling awhile back. It was an old industrial building turned into a restaurant.

Ceiling came out awesome. Everybody who walks in comments on it.

It was all Douglass Fir trusses and decking. One of the best looking ceilings I've ever seen.

Stuart in MN · Jun 5, 2018

Unless the person doing the sandblasting knows exactly what they're doing, it's a good way to turn the rafters into driftwood.

rburke65 · Jun 5, 2018

I wouldn’t see what the harm wo7ld be to the wood.

Norcal · Jun 6, 2018

Done right would be great, done wrong going to be weird.

Musicinabottle · Jun 6, 2018

rburke65 said:
I wouldn’t see what the harm wo7ld be to the wood.

If you corn blast it using a power washer, no problem. A sand blaster on the other hand eats out the soft grains and leaves the harder grained wood. The result is the same as letting raw wood get wet, it raises the grain severely in a sense.

Lelandwelds · Jun 6, 2018

Sign companies do it all the time. It looks like giant fingerprints.

evintho · Jun 6, 2018

https://www.texasblaster.com/index.php?dispatch=pages.view&page_id=11

NUTTSGT · Jun 6, 2018

I wouldn't think you would want to use sand but a softer abrasive.

RivennHewn, what type of media did you use on the ceiling ?

bwringer · Jun 6, 2018

Sounds like there are several types of blasting used for wood. Depends on the purpose of the blasting, but I'd suspect it's a gentler type of blasting used to remove old paint and reveal the wood, like that restaurant up there.

Realtors are... special creatures. And sometimes you have to do some interpretation to figure out what the hell they mean. The realtor probably heard "blasting" of some sort and added the word "sand".

Nor'Easter · Jun 6, 2018

There is nothing wrong with sandblasting wood. Sand in itself is not going to eat through a rafter. Depends on distance, mixture rate, air pressure, and nozzle size.

It can all be controlled. If some one says it can't, find someone else.

930dreamer · Jun 6, 2018

I can't imagine using sand type product in a house but dry ice will work;

ChaseDE · Jun 6, 2018

Lelandwelds said:
Sign companies do it all the time. It looks like giant fingerprints.

Nor'Easter said:
There is nothing wrong with sandblasting wood. Sand in itself is not going to eat through a rafter. Depends on distance, mixture rate, air pressure, and nozzle size.

It can all be controlled. If some one says it can't, find someone else.

Yeah when I was young I worked making signs, and sandblasted signs. I know nothing about sand blasting so IDK what settings, media, pressure we used but to make the signs we had a solid piece of wood. We would laser cut thick rubber type material into what we wanted to keep on the sign and adhere that to the wood. Then sandblast what we wanted to carve out. It was quick and easy and made a good looking sign after painting the other parts.

joe_padavano · Jun 6, 2018

I recently needed to blast the ceiling joists and upstairs flooring in the 300 year old log house we own. I used walnut shells. It worked great. All the paint, crud, and discoloration came off with no damage to the wood. The walnut shells from Harbor Freight actually did a much better job than the more expensive ones I got from TP Tools. The latter were too finely ground to be effective. Amazingly, the Harbor Freight walnut shell media is a product of the USA. Must be the only thing in the store that's US-made. :bounce:

yeldogt · Jun 6, 2018

It depends on the wood and the effect one is trying to achieve --having done old industrial buildings/ Barns/ Church/Early 1800's homes .. sandblasting works on some material.

Most novice discussing any procedure using media and air -- call it sand blasting.

Falcon67 · Jun 6, 2018

Musicinabottle said:
They do make silicone roofing in a bucket.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mobile-Coat/26959800

homeschool · Jun 6, 2018

Wow, that's beautiful. Hard to believe it's the same space.

(Talking about the beer hall picture, for some reason it didn't insert quote)

TractorJeff · Jun 6, 2018

Place down the road used corn media. I assume dry blasting?
Walnut shells is a good idea!
We have painted or stained beams in my house that we want to lighten someday....

dutchgray · Jun 6, 2018

We have had a new oak frame sandblasted for a customer, it certainly looked rustic when it was done, biggest problem was getting the 3 tonnes of sand back out of the building.
Great for getting old paint or limewash off brick walls as well.

Kmp259 · Jun 6, 2018

RivennHewn said:
We blasted a whitewashed ceiling awhile back. It was an old industrial building turned into a restaurant.

Ceiling came out awesome. Everybody who walks in comments on it.

It was all Douglass Fir trusses and decking. One of the best looking ceilings I've ever seen.

That is nice looking.....and the effect I was hoping for.....

Thanks for all the thoughts....now we need to justify the ceiling and polishing the floor......to see if we can get some of the money back in the future.....

yeldogt · Jun 6, 2018

It was common to use a coal tar emulsion on timbers years ago and then place a ceiling -- people often think it's dirt when the ceiling comes down. You have to use an abrasive to remove.

Jim_No_Garage · Jun 8, 2018

dutchgray said:
We have had a new oak frame sandblasted for a customer, it certainly looked rustic when it was done, biggest problem was getting the 3 tonnes of sand back out of the building.
Great for getting old paint or limewash off brick walls as well.

Years ago I delivered a 100 CFM Air compressor and a sandblast pot to a home so the homeowner could sandblast the wrought iron railings on his outdoor patio.

When I went to pick up the equipment the man was furious. He used up a pallet of sand to complete the job and his patio looked like a sandbox when he was done. He said we never told him how much sand he would need.

A local barn was dry-ice blasted to remove mold and it came out beautiful.

Cheers

Jim

walta · Jun 10, 2018

The first question is why are they spending money blasting a building they are selling?

Is mold present?
Hiding fire damage/ smell?
Lead paint?

It seems very unlikely beautifying a ceiling could increased the sales price enough to recover its cost.

Walta

RivennHewn · Jun 10, 2018

NUTTSGT said:
I wouldn't think you would want to use sand but a softer abrasive.

RivennHewn, what type of media did you use on the ceiling ?

It’s been awhile, but I believe it was a Kleen Blast product. Not sure what grit.
It’s smelter slag, and pretty aggressive. It still took a week to complete.

The operator was an artist.

The beer hall is awesome. If you’re ever in Seattle:

www.queenannebeerhall.com

jimf909 · Jun 10, 2018

^^^ It is a big, airy, clean and comfortable space. I’ve wondered what it took to clean out 100 years of industry or warehousing out of that place. Well done!

rburke65 · Jun 10, 2018

Well the term “ sand blasting” is like saying Kleenex or Xerox. Pretty generic.

yeldogt · Jun 10, 2018

rburke65 said:
Well the term “ sand blasting” is like saying Kleenex or Xerox. Pretty generic.

Exactly - and there is a lot of overlap. Guys that use a particular product get good at using that product.

The guy I use does a lot of post fire work so he is very good using soda - but they also use dry ice. There is no "one" or correct product ... glass is another media that can be used and comes in lots of different forms.

Many big timbers in barns and early industrial building are hemlock (hand made)-- it's strong and was easy to work when green -- the trees grew straight. later buildings used white oak because the early guys used up a lot of the hemlock.

The old hemlock is really pretty and is still valued if you have the beams -- the later oak is often cut up for flooring

Sand blasting wooden rafter ??

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