Soda Blasting?

[Bolster]

I have been reading about soda blasting in catalogs, where it's touted as an amazing nondestructive alternative to sand- and bead-blasting. Appears to require a separate hopper on a regular blasting cabinet. Anybody here used soda blasting, and what's your impression (no pun intended)?

 

[rsanter]

it works
it is slow, it will not take off heavy rust, it will not take off bondo

it will take off light rust and paint

because the particles are smaller and lighter there is less heating and less stress applied to the metal. less heat and stress means less warpage on panels that have large flat areas.

you can use it to blast plastic where sand will do some damage to it

you better have a good water seperator/air drier

bob

 

[Galvatron]

We use soda blasting to clean the anilox rolls of our big printing presses at work, To say it's fine is an understatement. Some of our rolls have a 400 per square inch cell count. That's 400 micrscopic pockets per quare inch.

 

[jpelosi2002]

As stated above, soda blasting is more of a cleaning process than a stripping process. What's nice about soda blasting is that the soda disolves in water, making it easy to clean out of things with lots of small ports, like carburator castings for instance. It has it's place but isn't a replacement for glass bead and especially not sand. Walnut shells will give a similar finish without the cheap availability and easy clean up off soda. Have fun experimenting.
Jim

 

[PAToyota]

I notice that TPTools is now offering a soda blasting attachment for their blasting cabinets. I got their catalog after Fall Carlisle. Unfortunately, other things kept me from getting out there this fall, but I'm sure that they were demonstrating it out there and would have liked to see it and talk to them. I've had pieces soda blasted in the past and will have to consider whether I'd want to add it to my setup. Guess I'll have to wait for Spring Carlisle.

As others have said, it has its place. Namely, being a less destructive and gentle medium while also being easy to fully remove from the finished piece. Definitely not something to consider as a primary media for all your needs. For one, you only use it once. It isn't recycled through the blaster like you do with other media. So it gets to be fairly expensive when you consider that. Further, it isn't as agressive as other media - which can be a benefit but if you don't need that care it is going to take much longer to strip with it (if it works at all on heavier removal).

As with a lot of things, it all depends on what you are attempting to accomplish and choosing your tools appropriately.