+1 - my machinist uses a large ultrasonic machine, your machinist should have something like that... the machine uses heated water and dilute citrus along with vibration.. cleans'em right up. Does good on cam towers unless you like spending a few weekends cleaning them... like I did :(

How much and what is the grain size?

my brief reading on soda is that it is good because you can confidently get it all off. the down side is that it can be dusty and wears out... that's just my 2 cents.. I'm thinking of building a blast cab. so I'm interested in how it works out.

Soda is meant to be disposable. One use is about all it is good for. Use it to strip oily parts without parts cleaning first.

John, could you tell us what blasting material was used in the first photo? Was it Soda Blasted?

Kenik,
What blaster are you using? Manufacturer, etc.

regards,

al

Dan, I think that first photo is a combination of corrosion from the engine sitting (note it's on the exhaust side where water accumulates) and glass bead. I used to run a soda blasting business (in Michigan, as a matter of fact) and the basic Armex isn't aggressive enough to do that unless the substrate is weak (as it certainly was, being made of aluminum oxide. . .)

The portable one:
http://www.ace-sandblasting.com/soda-blasting.html

kenik... will this work to remove the underbody black coating... I am having a name block in my brain now...?
Thx Bob

Undercoating is pretty burly; not sure if the armex media has enough bite.

Gene @ ACE equated it as using an eraser to remove it...it will work he said, all be it slower than a more aggressive media.
Thx for your info and post Kenik
Do you have one of these machines and if so, how does it work?
Do you know if these are avail to rent??
Bob

The small one. If it is slow that is going to be expensive on media...

tempting to go buy the 2-PS, strip the tub I am restoring in 1 day and be ready for paint in a heart beat... seems too easy... must be a catch... Gene said 10-12 of the 50# bags of Flow-XL @ $~30/bag = $300 for the media... sell the blaster for 750 when done and I have a tub ready for paint in 1 day for $1,100.00 !!!

i would venture a guess that those pits were already there and not because of glass beading.

Would those pits be repairable with by a skilled welder?

Your guess as good as mine JW, the blasting was done before these were sold to me with no disclosure they were junk. I would have saved the shipping, I got two usable heads out of six, and one of them I sent for nada to our friend Rich Lambert. The other waits for an SWB owner in need: my Porsche Karma could use a booster shot.

Buck. . . IF those heads were 69S the only sound you would be hearing from me would be the zzzt-zzzt-zzzt of tungsten in a shielding box full of argon. . . unfortunately they are 66 normal heads, nailhead valves, whopper 32mm ports and combustion chambers so deep you could comfortably eat one of those mini boxes of Frosted Flakes out of them (which I may do on a dare when my car finally is ready for concours). In short, they are paperweights, conversation pieces, boat anchors.

John, and John,

I have a set of heads here that I bought (3.2) that look like the ones pictured, and that was before I bead blasted them. There was no difference in them as a result of the blasting, it was all corrosion. They were sold as "rebuildable" but that is another story, they are junk......

Cheers

I have a Harbor Freight pressure blasting unit that I have converted to work with my Eastwood blast cabinet. It works great with glass bead. I'll bet I could convert it to soda blasting.

Anyone have any ideas?

Is the soda medium a one time use? What is the cost?

from what I know tom the soda is a 1x use as when it hits the surface being worked on the crystal structure of the soda disentegrates and turns into real fine powder (unuseable) thus doing its job of removing the media.
Some reuse the powder but it works ~ 20% as well as the original and takes a ton more time to get it to do any removal as it is truely powder at that point.
Cost is $25~30 / 50# bag of the well known Arm& Hammer brand "Arm-X", Flow XL".
All of this info is per Gene @ ACE as I called the guy yesterday after "kenikh" above posted the source
Good luck!
Bob

Soda Blasting works great on teeth too! :)
Had it done on Friday. White powder was flying everywhere! My face was covered, but my teeth were really clean and smooth.