Cheap blast cabinet worth it?

[Ross365]

I bought a Switzer cabinet off ebay for £90 (I think it's the same as the SGS you posted), purely for occasional hobby use. For that money, I've been content with it. I think for your first set up, it's the compressor where skimping is bad idea. Give adequate thought to where you are going to put it, how you'll trap water out of the gas line and what you will do about some ventilation (extracator fan). This is needed as the small outlet filters on the small cabs need ripping off on day one.

I've had mine about a year, learned a lot from owning it, made various improvements to it, and I'm always "doing bits" to it. I think it's adequate for my needs, and if I did want to upgrade, I'd be much more knowledgeable about knowing where I wanted to go. I'm glad I bought it.

 

[RWD3M]

Ok, sounds like I will forget about it, not wanting anything fancy and won't get massive use so I will just save my money and spend it on something for the bike

Easy tiger! That's virtually identical to the one I have and mine gives perfectly good results. However, on the downside, due to it being a 'benchtop' cabinet, the hopper sides are too shallow and the media won't fall down to the bottom that well. I use a rubber mallet for assistance. Additionally, the lighting quickly becomes carp, but that'll be the same for most cabinets. Aside from that, not really much wrong with it.

 

[brightspark]

you should have bought the guyson one of here a few weeks ago was a gift for the price

 

[Ross365]

Easy tiger! That's virtually identical to the one I have and mine gives perfectly good results. However, on the downside, due to it being a 'benchtop' cabinet, the hopper sides are too shallow and the media won't fall down to the bottom that well. I use a rubber mallet for assistance. Additionally, the lighting quickly becomes carp, but that'll be the same for most cabinets. Aside from that, not really much wrong with it.

Yes to all that. I've been trying to make a vibrator to get the media to fall - still working on that. I've also improved the water extraction from the line, so the media may be drier and may be more inclined to fall.

I made a good improvement to the lighting; ripped out the tube at the back, which puts too much light in your face, and replaced it with a length of that adhesive tape which has 2 LED's every inch or so and stuck that under the lid, so all the light is angled downwards. It runs from the original power unit, so easy to re-wire and works well.

 

[brightspark]

Easy tiger! That's virtually identical to the one I have and mine gives perfectly good results. However, on the downside, due to it being a 'benchtop' cabinet, the hopper sides are too shallow and the media won't fall down to the bottom that well. I use a rubber mallet for assistance. Additionally, the lighting quickly becomes carp, but that'll be the same for most cabinets. Aside from that, not really much wrong with it.

i made sloped sides for mine and improved the pickup and put a 4 inch duct in it. as i said ok for small parts

 

[Hood]

Be better off with a drum burnisher and some scotch wheels

Was considering one but not sure as it would be a cheapo so...

 

[Hood]

you should have bought the guyson one of here a few weeks ago was a gift for the price

Never saw it but probably bigger than I have room for anyway.

 

[Ruffian]

Was considering one but not sure as it would be a cheapo so...

The katsu stuff is cheap and cheerful for what it is. But been happy with the die grinder.
(£59 for the burnisher)

Pardon our interruption...

As for @8ob
I know a guy who does vapour blasting near me at "home"

(I say home loosely as he has 3ph and some other toys, but could almost see a blast cabinet with a pressure washer almost doing a half decent job)

 

[Hood]

That is the one I was looking at.

 

[500e]

@Burdekin had one I was interested but beloved went back to hospital so had to put things on hold, he may still have it

 

[bricol]

I bought one of the cheap floor standing ones - it needed sealing properly, some additional lights, and modified extraction (I use a 6" fan blowing into the back of the cabinet, with cyclone separator jammed in the outlet the other side). Use semi-decent blasting media and it works pretty well. Needs the occasional reverse blow down the suction tube, occasional clonk on the side to shake media down, but with a decent compressor or two connected up, it works pretty well. Well enough for the other half to enjoy playing with it and blasting some of my car bits!

Media needs sifting after a while (I use bonsai tree enthusiasts sieve) to remove the bits of rust, paint, underseal etc that block the nozzle. Over-using the media just creates lots of dust for no effect. I keep meaning to do some mods to the pickup to stop me having to clear the tube, or clonk the side, but the time involved is more than the time lost in doing the clonking . . .

No good for industrial use, but pretty good for occasional DIY I reckon.

 

[Burdekin]

@Burdekin had one I was interested but beloved went back to hospital so had to put things on hold, he may still have it

Sold it yesterday.

 

[MCKDAVID]

I bought one of the cheap floor standing ones - it needed sealing properly, some additional lights, and modified extraction (I use a 6" fan blowing into the back of the cabinet, with cyclone separator jammed in the outlet the other side). Use semi-decent blasting media and it works pretty well. Needs the occasional reverse blow down the suction tube, occasional clonk on the side to shake media down, but with a decent compressor or two connected up, it works pretty well. Well enough for the other half to enjoy playing with it and blasting some of my car bits!

Media needs sifting after a while (I use bonsai tree enthusiasts sieve) to remove the bits of rust, paint, underseal etc that block the nozzle. Over-using the media just creates lots of dust for no effect. I keep meaning to do some mods to the pickup to stop me having to clear the tube, or clonk the side, but the time involved is more than the time lost in doing the clonking . . .

No good for industrial use, but pretty good for occasional DIY I reckon.

be interested to see photos of the mods that you've done, to see how you made it work. Sounds like we have the same machine. Mine was pathetic at the beginning, works reasonable well with 23cfm, still get problems with the grit clumping, but that's due to humidity in the container that's why I've gone for a pressure pot which I can keep in the main workshop and run the hose out, which I hope will alleviate that problem. The earlier compressor around 12cfm, it kind of worked, but you'd to be very patient frankly hardly worth the bother, so aye stick some photos up of you don't mind.

 

[james butler]

i sold mine as it wasnt very good to a pal for £30 and still had £30 worth of fine garnet in it.
he faffed about with it and had a dyson inpsired filtration unit on the side of it and modded the pickup so it worked really well.
still worked out cheaper for me as all the bits i wanted blasting i would give to him to blast
in short i wouldnt buy one for more than £30 because its going to cost you to get it working right

 

[Roger440]

Is vapour blasting doable at a home workshop level, seen the results and it looks impressive. Sorry for the derail @Hood , we will get back to your question about roof tiles shortly.



Bob

Definitely. Ok, i bought a cheap one, but all the same, it turning out to be really useful.

If you want a budget approach, take a look at some of this guys videos.

 

[Kram]

For aluminium I am finding that hot caustic works well and gives a uniform finish. It seems to need a few minutes at 20% (quite strong) and 60c. It will eat off the corrosion, but best results it seems to need a short dip in acid after.

 

[MetalMonkey]

Thinking of getting a cheap blast cabinet like this for cleaning up aluminium and stainless.

SSB100 Shot & Sand Blasting & Polishing Cabinet

The SSB100 Shot blast cabinet is most effective blast cleaning system that will revitalise most metal objects suffering from surface corrosion or an unwanted coating.

www.sgs-engineering.com

I am not expecting professional results but just wondering if they work reasonably well.
Basically what I am wanting is to clean up bits of corroded aluminium such as the sheet in this pic.

If they do work would I get an even enough finish or is that just hoping for too much with such cheap equipment?

Apart from a compressor is there anything else needed?

The suction tube ones are just rubbish, but you can cheaply and easily convert them or indeed make from scratch one with the mixer valve style.
The mixer ones work great and they don't clog - you will need a foot pedal, metering valve, a BNP suction blast gun, and I would recommend a boron carbide nozle to go in it.

I would also suggest some extraction and lighting so you can see what you are doing - but this is all quite easy to do. If it is too much hassle you can buy them under a range of brands with the generic SBC420 model number.

e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110532594781
You can see the key parts in the pictures, but they are all available separately.

I built mine from plywood which has held up fine, but thesedays its probably cheaper to build it from steel, or gold or something.

You will just about get away with running one on a 14CFM (10 FAD) compressor if you only have small bits to do and you aren't running it constantly.

 

[Hood]

Thanks, I may have a lead on one for free, no idea what kind it is but we will see if it comes to fruition.

 

[Hood]

Just heard back, guy is keeping it so no go

 

[Munkul]

We have a larger suction blast cabinet, it's only ever used for small things that NEED blasted as it's a slow and relatively weak setup. A pressure blast pot has far, far more power and speed.
I will convert ours to run on the blast pot at some point... when, I'm not sure...