Anyone do blast work on the side for $$$.
I have done it as part of my one man machine shop business, but not as a service.
Have a Trinco model 36 that I've had for years. (Smaller parts come in that need rebuilding, and they get cleaned up in the process). It's siphon, but doesn't work too bad with Alox in it. But I have been slowly acquiring (hoarding?) equipment to do bigger parts as a stand alone service. I may even advertise, but probably word of mouth mostly.
There is an actual business in a town nearby that only does blasting and powder coating. But in my opinion, they have a wrong approach. They use a bank of small (5hp) electric compressors for example, and the cost of electricity is very high here. I think most of their profit goes to the electric company.
The business changes hands every few years, probably shortly after the new owner figures out he's not making any money??
Just playing around, I blasted a pair of old cast iron clothes irons last week. First I played with the new-to-me siphon cabinet I found on cheap CL a couple weeks ago. It's a disaster and dismally slow. (I will convert it to a pressure-reclamation system in the future) And issues with the wet air made it not fun at all. Then I went at them with my smaller TIP pressure pot and the IR diesel compressor. Even with a small 3/16 nozzle, it took less than 5 minutes, so I was done before the water became an issue, and then I sprayed them with black hammer tone from a rattle can. They were for my girlfriend, and she was quite impressed. I think there are upscale folks that like their 'antiques' around here, for something like this, would gladly pay $40 and up to have their 'antique' dew-dads blasted and rattle-canned. Which would not be too shabby, considering hourly rates VS time spent. But I want to do it in a cabinet not out in the open...
So back to acquiring and fixing up equipment for the process. Gotta get the air drier in some way before I can go much further, I can see that.
I'm also kinda like RJ, I enjoy the theory and discussion of the equipment and the processes.
To all. NEVER put a damp or oily part into a blast cabinet to process it. It will contaminate the hell out of a system, and it is a ***** to clean.
To address that problem, about a month ago, I picked up an old Snap-on pressure parts washer cabinet. It's sorta like an Abrasive blast cabinet, but uses a high pressure pump with a water-soap mixture to blast the gook off of the grimy parts. There are gloves, and a hose with nozzle. I'm doing some repairs to it, the lid is rusted out. Prev owner used the wrong soap which was not for ferrous metals. It works amazingly well.
The piece of wire happen to be near at hand and I bent it in half and stuck it in the hole. Media flow is great !
