Pull behind air compressor and sandblaster

[wantacoe]

About 30 years ago I hired a sandblaster to come out and sandblast a car for me. Car was on a rotisserie so I had him blast the bottom, inside floors, door jambs, trunk jamb and engine compartment. It took him a couple hours to do and he only used about 2 bags of sand. A few years later i was doing another car so bought a 10 gallon pressurized blaster and did it myself. Never again. It took me probably 20 hours, 20 bags of sand. It ate nozzles and valves like candy. ( I do have a pretty big compressor that while blasting would maintain 90psi.) I know the commercial blaster is superior to mine but what is the huge difference? I am blasting maybe a 1/4" path where they must have been 2-3 inches wide. Also did same thing with a blast cabinet. Place I used to take intake manifolds to could do one in like 15 minutes. My cheap HF cabinet takes forever.

 

[cvairwerks]

A lot of it is simply air volume. Most of the smaller towable compressors used for sandblasting put out about 185 SCFM @ 90 psig. The hoses, blast pots and nozzles are sized for big flows and cover lots of area in a hurry.

 

[txvwnut]

Nozzle size, air volume, grit of media and how close you are all has a effect on removing with blasting. The closer you get to the object the smaller the blast area, the farther away the larger the blast pattern gets.

 

[Steve_P]

I worked at a tool rental place in the late 1980s and we had a bunch of tow behind compressors. The smallest one was a 302 Ford that compressed air on half the engine- so, 151 cubic inches. The rest were 351 cubic inch Fords and diesel compressors. So, even that 302 Ford was probably putting out 10X what the largest 240V compressor could.

 

[OccupantRJ]

For blasting, a lot of air is good, more is better, and too much is just enough!

 

[mike93lx]

Just like pressure washing, volume does way more work than pressure. Even a small towable compressor is a monster compared to what you have at home.

He also was a pro, so experience and dialed in equipment helps a lot