Soda blasting an engine block

[EddyP]

HI Guys,
I've got a couple of engines and gearboxes I want to soda blast and get looking like new, but the people i've spoken to are talking prices in the region of £100 to do one engine! seems a bit steep, blast pots don't seem to be much more than that so thinking it might make sense to get one and DIY it.
Already got a decent compressor, so which blast pot would be good to go for?
Or are there any DIY designs from an old gas bottle or anything like that?
Does soda even need a blast pot, or will one of the guns from machine mart that suck the powder up from a pot like a spray gun be good enough?


Thanks

 

[brightspark]

HI Guys,
I've got a couple of engines and gearboxes I want to soda blast and get looking like new, but the people i've spoken to are talking prices in the region of £100 to do one engine! seems a bit steep, blast pots don't seem to be much more than that so thinking it might make sense to get one and DIY it.
Already got a decent compressor, so which blast pot would be good to go for?
Or are there any DIY designs from an old gas bottle or anything like that?
Does soda even need a blast pot, or will one of the guns from machine mart that suck the powder up from a pot like a spray gun be good enough?


Thanks

buy a 90 quid pressure pot or make your own .the soda will cost a fortune . cheapo suction guns will be useless

 

[EddyP]

Is there any difference between a pot for grit or a pot for soda?
Just wondering why one company sells a "soda conversion kit" for their blast pot?

Presume the £90 pots are the ebay ones?

 

[500e]

http://eshop.robsonblastcleaning.co...hops/BT3620/Categories/Ecostrip_Soft_Abrasive

Just bought a tonne very helpful sent a bag for us to try first.
Price was fair to, takes paint off Without damage, the nice thing is you can wash it out of oil galleries with water

 

[brightspark]

Is there any difference between a pot for grit or a pot for soda?
Just wondering why one company sells a "soda conversion kit" for their blast pot?

Presume the £90 pots are the ebay ones?

the soda conversion suposed to have a better metering valve than the standard pot which is probably true as cheap pots just have a crappy ball valve and dont regulate over well i made this one and it works perfect no matter what the media

 

[500e]

We have made an auger feed with variable speed motor have only run it once will advise on further use, made out of large cheap wood auger certainly feeds really smote with good simple regulation down to virtually nothing, should feed most abrasives, we are running very low pressures 30 psi & less.
Have no vested interest in Robinson other than satisfied customer, helpful, kept us informed regarding delivery & wanted to make sure the product was what we required before we commuted to 1 tonne.
Like the valve BS but why make it simple when you can have fun with electro mechanical system, "love a bit of complication"

 

[brightspark]

We have made an auger feed with variable speed motor have only run it once will advise on further use, made out of large cheap wood auger certainly feeds really smote with good simple regulation down to virtually nothing, should feed most abrasives, we are running very low pressures 30 psi & less.
Have no vested interest in Robinson other than satisfied customer, helpful, kept us informed regarding delivery & wanted to make sure the product was what we required before we commuted to 1 tonne.
Like the valve BS but why make it simple when you can have fun with electro mechanical system, "love a bit of complication"

the fact is ive used them on pots for the last 30 years before machine mart ever made them .there reliable and service free. the pots i made were to earn me money with no hassle and minimum cost some things are worth experementing with but the reg valve isnt for me

 

[rtbcomp]

We have made an auger feed with variable speed motor have only run it once will advise on further use, made out of large cheap wood auger certainly feeds really smote with good simple regulation down to virtually nothing, should feed most abrasives, we are running very low pressures 30 psi & less.
......

I've been thinking on these lines in a non-pressurised pot as I use very fine media that tends to stick to the sides of a pressure pot.

I would build in a stop-start timer so the grit feed can be interrupted every few seconds, keeping the air going to blow the work area clear, very useful when blasting inside something like a bucket!

 

[Hugh Jass]

Don't forget that you have to wash the item after you have finished.
Or else if you just blast it off with the compressor you end up with some weird white mold looking stuff on your aluminium six months later.