Home compressor for blasting my car

[DeanR32]

Afternoon all

I'm about to buy a compressor and need it to be powerful enough to blast my car with one of these home blasting kits.

Anyone got any recommendations on what to buy? And also any recommendations on a blasting kit too? I'm not made if money by the way!

Cheers lads

 

[piman]

Hello Dean,

you'll need an exceptional amount of patience to use a home blasting kit and a home compressor to blast clean a car.
What are you trying to do, de rust or remove all the paint? Even the former needs a lot of air and a good bit of kit to be effective.

If you explain in detail what you want to do then you'll get some better advice.

Alec

 

[fenman]

what he said twice

 

[DeanR32]

Thanks for the replies lads

I don't want to do the whole car. I've got some tricky areas to get to which I reckon blasting would make life easier.

Here for instance

It just seems a real awkward place to get to with wire wheels/cups etc

Unless you guys have any better ideas. I'm all for people's input.

Cheers again

 

[God mode restorations]

I use a 150 lt compressor 3hp..with a shot blast gun...get a heavy grit and blast away..you have to fill the pot up every couple of minutes but does the job....wear suitable clothing and head gear as it makes a right mess.....

 

[SmartWerks]

Isn't this a job for soda blasting?

 

[God mode restorations]

Could well be..have never used soda blast ...but a lot of companies are using it...

 

[SmartWerks]

Also wet blasting. If you have a half decent pressure washer you get a attachment for the lance which introduces media to the water jet. Some vids on youtube

 

[Turbo]

Forget about wet blasting, especially on a car. You're blasting wet sand into every nook and cranny creating future rust problems, it's a real mess to clean up and you need a lot of kiln dried sand which you cant reuse unless you have a kiln handy!

 

[Gareth J]

Hmmm, yea, blasting will clear that area out. Get as big a compressor as you can afford/run. 150l 3hp will probably be the limit of single phase without getting dedicated electrics. But remember to get the sand out of the nooks and crannies

Question, what will you do when it's blasted? Any paint you put on will burn off when you weld it up? In which case, maybe its easier to brim the channel with waxoyl then drain after you've done the welding...

 

[God mode restorations]

That's the problem I had...you can get a 200 lt 3hp compressor that's 13amp supply..above that then its 16amp ...but its all about ya budget and what you can afford...

 

[PSweeney]

most 3hp compressors will want to pull 16A+ on start up, so whilst it may start with an empty tank it will draw significantly more current with residual pressure in the tank and blow a 13A fuse..

 

[droopsnoot]

I've blasted some areas like that on my project, either using an Aldi spot blaster for flat areas, or with a Clarke blast gun and some taped-on plastic bags to catch the glass media. I have a 3hp 50l compressor and it took quite some time to do the areas I needed to do, but still works well as long as you're patient. The biggest problem I get now is that the media clogs in the pick-up pipe, which I still need to solve. I have a portable blasting cabinet in the shape of a large plastic bag which I used to good effect last weekend blasting a corner of a door, but abandoned plans to blast some other parts of it after the clogging drove me mad, and will revisit with the spot blaster.

So in your photo I'd get a big enough plastic bag, cut a slit in the bottom and tape it around the slot in the chassis rail, assuming that's what it is, and block the ends off with tape, bit of wood or cardboard or something, just to control the media. Also block up the holes - when I did my front panel I just used masking tape, but try to avoid blasting directly onto it, or stick card or scrap steel over them. In the other end of the bag, you have a hole for your arm and the blast gun, and either tie it around your arm or just hold it closed. You'll never stop all the media escaping, it's just to minimise spread. Blast a bit at a time, you'll have to keep stopping to see what you've done because the dust will make it impossible while you're working. In fact you can see so little that using a black plastic bin liner probably wouldn't give less vision than the clear bag I used - the inside gets caked in dust almost straight away.

In that section I'd also look at painting on some kind of acid - I get quite good results painting on diluted phosphoric acid and either leaving overnight (with a cling film cover to stop it drying) or agitating with a brush for 15-odd minutes then wiping off. If the rust isn't deep that can give you a clean metal finish, or soften the rust enough to allow you to scrape it off. There's only so much you can do, though, unless you're going to open up all the box sections and do the same.