Sand blaster in Pittsburgh

[47silver]

As we want to get the 72 targa stripped for painting I read a bunch posts on here and else-where and most people say do not use sand to strip the car unless the person knows what they are doing.
armed with this information I talked to a guy today who blasts cars (he has 4 cra bodies on site that are to be done over the next week)...
he has experience as he did some work for me early last year on some front end parts.
he said that he knows what he is doing and will not warp any panels.
he said that the metal will be smooth and not marked .
He does not prime after blasting and said that the car will not need primer immediately. I did not ask why but I suppose it is the media he uses?
My question is can an experienced operator, using the correct media, and proper equipment provide a smooth finish with unstressed metal, that will not need primed immediately?
we only get one shot at this and want to do it correctly.

[yel911]

I've had my car plastic media blasted and brought it home ASAP to DA 80 grit and epoxy prime. The car sat for a day before the sand/primer was done. 962porsche can tell you what you should do. He IS the man for bodywork.

[962porsche]

you did not state just what media he was going to use .
I am thinking sand ? and that is ok to use !
it's not that using sand is such a bad thing it's more the people that use it do heavy equipment .
there is also the problem with sand that if any of it is left in the seams and places like in the rockers it holds moisture and that will tend to rust out the areas were the sand is left .
so it's a must you get all the sand out of the nooks and crannies .

as for not having to get primer on the bare metal right away that is some thing you should do ASAP no matter what media you use . how ever there are treatments some blasters use instead of them priming that will hold the flash rusting of for a short time letting the person or shop have some time to prep the metal them self's and primer .

over the last two weeks I have been looking into dustless blasting system to start up a little business for a family member and I doing mobile blasting .
in about a month I will be heading down to Austin Texas to go racing when i'm there I will check out the system 1st hand and see if we can cut a deal .
they state they have a product that will stop flash rusting of the metal substrate for 72 hours .
i'm not sure of to many details at this point as i'm still looking into it and writing a business plan .
but going mobile with EPA friendly dustless blasting may work in our area ?
it could save the customer the cost and headache of getting there car to a blasting shop .

[47silver]

he was going to use sand, but I am not going to use it due to all of the bad press that it has.
dustless would be interesting, is it a high pressure washer maybe?

[47silver]

i watched the youtubes of this method,, looks very impressive, they use recycled glass and a 160CFM air compressor to make it work correctly.
the smallest of the blasters looked like it was aroound $5000.00, but that did not include a compressor.

[962porsche]

i'm looking at a get into cost so far of about 25 K .
that is with out the added costs of some other equipment we would need .
right now i'm looking into the compressors . I have a 15 hp compressor electric from my old fabrication shop that i'm thinking of changing to gas . the place that does my compressor servicing came out Tuesday to see what it would need to do so i'm waiting for them to get back to me with a price to do the swap .
it's not really the type of thing the DIY would buy to just do one car .
i'm not sure if there is a market for going mobile with it ?
nor do I know just how big of a area we would cover or have to cover . it may be just the shore line of CT or the hole state of CT and maybe into NY , RI , and MA,
this is why i'm still not finished with the business plan . if there is a real market for this and we can get into it for around 50K or less I may just do it ?
one problem is winter months and water . the old Fabrication shop is totally empty now so we may also do the blasting there in the winter months .
there are so many I don't know questions so far I want to check it out 1st hand when I go to TX .

[47silver]

962, i cannot see doing this in someones drive way in a nice housing plan, i think it would cause problems, as there is still a mess.
if i were to start the business i would offer a service to trailer the vehicle to the shop,
build a couple of dollies to get cars without wheels onto the trailer.
base it on mileage from the shop and/or rent out a trailer for them to bring the car to the shop, that would be the eliminate the delivery impediment.
towing a trailer around with a compressor and the dustless blaster would get old quickly.

[962porsche]

so i'm told there is or should be little to no mess .
the women I talked with stated if you lay plastic sheeting under the car , boat what ever and it's 5 to 6 feet past the blasting area there would be no mess . again so i'm told !
how ever going mobile it could be done at body shops, boat yards and so on .
but this is all the things I want to see and know about 1st hand when I go down to TX.
I will not be doing it off the back of a trailer it would be a box truck .
it's also not some thing I would be doing my self it's some thing i'm looking into setting up for my sisters kid .

[47silver]

like to know about it be a nice side business for a college kid in the summer

[962porsche]

if your looking into a side line or summer business you would not make any money for you out lay of cash to get into it for years .
just the cost of bonding / insurance for this is 600 dollars a month and that is not including the insurance for the truck or building .
as i'm writing the business plan and getting prices the start up cost is going up also .
there are many things you need just to get the business going .
so what you do is hire a kid looking for a summer job to do the blasting .
but the down side to that is if you were a car own would my want some kid doing it with little to no experience blasting away on your car ?

[Tom '74 911]

I've been considering getting one of those dustless blaster set ups for a while too, they are really intriguing. Not looking to set up as a business per say, so looking at the smaller versions and renting a compressor as needed.

I'm in Idaho, so I'd not be in competition w/you 962porsche!

A friend just paid $3K to have a 356 tub blasted. I have 3 911 tubs that need to be blasted - so that'd cost me $9K??!! I could buy one of the more affordable systems, do it myself and come out way ahead. The system could pay for itself by doing only a few additional cars at way less than $3K...

The only question I have is whether that blaster could take off the undercoating. Most of the car videos show only paint being removed, w/maybe some small sections of bondo. The rubberized undercoating is a real bear to deal with!

Just thinking out loud...

962porsche - I'd be REALLY interested to hear what you have to say after seeing the system in action. Would you use sand in the tank or their touted recycled glass?

[962porsche]

I would be using the glass as it's part of the dustless system .
in my old shop I have 3 blasting tents setup we would not blast off the chip guard most of the time we would remove it by air tools .
one of the only ez ways to blast it off clean is by using sand or black beauty .
it will burn up allot of sand or B.B. and still take time then the pits left for sand blasting the underside took to much time to sand back down to a smooth substrate .
so between the extra blasting time and the time to sand it smooth again we could remove it with air tools faster . then we would blast any of the chip guard that would be left with the plastic media .
I was told the glass will remove rust and body filler .
but even bodyfiller with in reason at times we would not go to nuts trying to blast it all off if it was real thick . we would grind most of it off and then blast the rest off to clean metal .

[47silver]

FYI a local soda blaster wants between 1500 to 3000 to do a 911 targa, depending on what all needed done, how much prep he had to do etc.

he said there was cleanup involved also.