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.

I have a patent using dry ice blasting: 6,585,569

Will Lowes have coal slag? It's a safe bet to say Home Depot doesn't.

It's used industrially to clean welding fixtures. Very common around here.

At this very minute, there is a crew dry ice blasting a stripped chassis in my garage. I'll report back in a few hours :)
AM

How many tons of CO2 are they releasing? ;)

I live in Canada - it's like I'm feeding the trees ;)
AM

:)

Bringing up an old posting, as I am trying to remove some surface rust on my 73 911 to preserve what I have until I can afford to paint the car.

Mr Puff-

What is the Mini Dust Collector/Seperator you refer to that pre screens the particles before the vacuum plugs up?

I also plan to use the soda blaster for the alum engine & trans cases.

I am told this works well. Also told to use "Shark Hide" to seal the aluminum after cleaning.

Len

:)

Why not get the real thing? This what we use in our blast cabinet at my work. ALOXGLASS M470140 Glass Bead Blast Media 5 Gal 5W022
If you use a plastic container, and it says Berry Plastics on the bottom, I probably polished the mold, or work with the guy that did. This is what we use for a texture for lids, and caps. It leaves a very smooth finish that would give just enough "tooth" for primer, and it won't warp, distort, or harden the panel. We've done a few motorcycle fenders, and tanks, and it's worked great. What ever you use, be sure to have a dust collection system, and LOTS of fresh air.

:)

For the small parts I will certainly use the blasting cabinet & the ALOXGLASS product you recommend.

For the few spots on the car I am soda blasting it outside. Man, does it really make a cloud!

I tried it using a particle mask & safety goggles, but now that I know how it all works I will buy a fresh air system w hood. I have seen them on eBay for about $400.

Len

:)

Walnut shells. Or soda blast.

And then treat it with phosphoric acid.

I don't use anything but sand. It is cheap and very effective. I do thin stuff all the time by turning down the sand and air output. I do use an approved respirator and dedicated suit and allow nobody in the area. It does cause silicosis if no precautions are taken.

your right we soda blast all the time and don't have a problem. Our soda blaster ,works like a sand blaster,with the exception of a vibrator to help it move in the pot and a few other things .We have a water hookup that helps keep it cool when stripping paint,as long as you clean it and prime soon after your done. And water doesn't conduct electricity without minerals such as salt .In fact the detergent mentioned is used in removing rust w/ electrolysis .walnut shells are used for more delicate items,they are used commonly on guns.we have used black beauty which is coal slag ,we have been using recycled glass,The guy melts down glass bottles and processes it into blasting media ,and claims it doesn't contain silica.

For the record, baking soda will work on small stuff and leave a nice finish. But that is not the type of soda used for blasting commercially. I did not know where to buy commercial soda, so I used the baking stuff. Again, what a mess.

However, I had one of the nicest looking early 911 CDI boxes around and it looked new, not blasted.

A few points:

Commercial soda goes by the trade name Armex, marketed by Church and Dwight, the Arm & Hammer people. They will claim that you are infringing their process patent if you use anyone else's soda in their Armex blaster machine, a modified sandblaster with a couple of pneumatic vibrators to keep the soda moving.

Water is injected into the process for dust control, not for coolant.

A bare steel item can be left for weeks before rusting. I have personally done this. However, you should use typical anticorrosion methods after you blast anything.

One last item-- typically large diesel-powered compressors are used, like a Sullair 180, to generate the CFM necessary to properly blast. I have never tried soda with a home setup, I can imagine it would be ok but not spectacular. With the big compressor, soda is spectacular. How about stripping paint off a panel while doing no damage to installed chrome trim or glass? Done that.