Sandblasting with cheap detergent?
 

I was reading up on sodablasting and someone stated that the "basicity" of the baking soda would cause corrosion. The same person then offered up an alternative to soda, cheap laundry detergent (large granules). What do you guys think? This is for rust and paint removal.

Why not walnut shells?

It is true that baking soda is a "base" chemical as opposed to an acid which is an "acetic" chemical. But, if doing the powder blasting with the sodium bicarbonate materials, once the blast work is finished, the piece or pieces need to be flushed with a lot of water and maybe a small dilution of vinegar to balance the two chemical out, and become neutral, then flush with more clean, to get any final residue from the nooks and crannies, then air dry the parts so there is no water left standing on them. To be totally honest, I have never used and boxed type laundry soap in my gun kits, it might work... then it my very well suck. Good luck with what ever way you decide to go with!! Tony.

Summer Breeze or Mountain Spring?

Baking soda is apparently harmless to everything but rust and paint. Plus it wont dent the metal.

Are shells a good choice to avoid damaging sheet metal?

I'm allergic to fragrance :(.

Walnut shells, ground corn husks, ground plastics (from soda bottles, etc like as used in shotgun shell buffer media), etc.

Bases including baking soda do not react with metals. I have no idea what the corrosion remarks are about.

Are you cleaning parts or the entire body of the car?

Laundry detergent is basic too. It is probably more basic than baking soda.

I have seen "Dry Ice" blasting, that would be the way to go if you could find someone in your area to do it.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Blasting sand is $8.5 for 50 lbs. Build a booth in your garage/living room/spare bedroom. Use a few bags to do heavier pieces (door shells, but not skins, etc.) and reuse it to do panels or have a bucket of masonary sand delivered for a few hundred dollars. Blasted my whole car in the garage and didn't warp any panels or have to expose it to any water afterwards . . . except for spittle when I'm cussing at it . . .

[QUOTE=legion;4145896]Laundry detergent is basic too. It is probably more basic than baking soda.[/QUOTI was waiting for that. Nasty stuff.

You were lucky. Sand is a not a good medium for sheet metal blasting. If it doesn't warp the metal, it still work hardens it.

I'm doing the whole car. If I were to try baking soda is it the normal Arm and Hammer stuff, or do I need to purchase it from a supplier (i.e. special baking soda)? Where would I get walnut shells?

If you bought cooking grade soda, you would spend about as much on soda as someone would charge you to do the job professionally. I went to Smart and Final and bought a couple of 5 lb. jars of the stuff. It's expensive when you buy it in quantity. I think commercial soda is much cheaper, but I don't now where to buy it.

And, it makes one heck of a mess. I did some soda out in the back yard and the place looked like I was burning weeds. However, the vacuum plugs up pretty fast with such a fine medium.

I think Sams Club and Costco sell 12lbs of soda for about $5. Online the cheapest 50lb bag is $38. It's not that bad. I think 5-7 50lb bags are needed for an entire car.

Mr. Puff is right. Costco and the like are the cheapest way to get baking soda. Not pool places, not industrial supplies. Costco.

If you use soda in your blasting cabinet, your vacuum could plug quickly as Milt mentions. This simple looking doo-hicky helps. It goes between your cabinet and vacuum. It attaches to a bucket. basically it takes the heavy particles out before reaching the vacuum. The vacuum still clogs but at a much slower rate. As the ebay add mentions adding water also helps.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mini-Dust-Collector-Separator-2-Stage-Cyclone-Adapter_W0QQitemZ270269784158QQihZ017QQcategoryZ42 283QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Soda blasting does not cause any corriosion, don't know where that is coming from. Any metal after blasting will rust if there is any humidity. You need to use a product to coat your blasted parts. I beleive when places blast your car frame they recommend a process like this.

You should not use sand in any way for blasting. It's extremely dangerous for your health (causes similar health problems as asbestos).

A cheap material for blasting is coal slag. A 80 lb is $30 at industrial supplies places. It's more aggressive than soda, it does remove some metal but it lasts longer than soda and it etches the metal for better adhesion of paint and/or powdercoating.

In the picture below the black part of the bracket is original, lower left is soda blasted, the right bracket is blasted with coal slag.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1219967981.jpg

If you do use sand get frac? sand. Thats what we call it around here. Its a really fine white sand thats used in the oil field.