First try sandblasting.

I have had a blast cabinet for a few years but I finally bought a pressure pot. I have 3 bags of black beauty that I use in the cabinet will it work good in the pressure pot? I also have several buckets of dry sifted sand. I hope to blast my wc fenders and hood in the morning. I just bought a cheap blast hood from harbor freight and was thinkin of using my paint respirator under it. I tried the sand in the cabinet and even with a shop vac hooked up it created so much dust I can't see anything. The black beauty worked much better in the cabinet. Any advice will be appreciated.

Set a fan behind you blowing the sand away from your face and body.  Helps a lot.  Tim

Thad, I am by no means an expert but do like the results sand blasting will give. I spread out a plastic tarp in the yard in a attempt to reuse whatever media I can. I was using silica sand which I buy for about $6.00 a bag at Ace hardware. The Black Beauty was costing me $20.00 for a 100lb bag which I thought was high. The Black Beauty is way more aggressive than the silica sand. If you attempt to reuse the media use a small screen to sift out the debris or you will be clogging it up. Wearing a respirator and face shield is a must. I was just cleaning up some D17 parts, not doing the Golden Gate Bridge or something like that. Hopefully others will chime in and not rag at me. Ryan

Was real supprised to see how well Dry Ice blasting works when I was going into refinreys . The dry ice presents no clean up problem like sand in finding places to get into , the only thing to clean up is the material removed.

recycled media will get dusty and adds to the visibility problems. The good thing is that the media that you use the second time around isn't as aggressive and will work better on the tin work.

I sand blast in my back yard as well and in addition to using a tarp to recover and reuse as much sand as possible, I bought a plastic 55 gallon drum (The kind they use to ship cooking oil).  I cut out the top of the barrell and placed a piece of expanded metal over it.  I place whatever I'm stripping on the expanded metal and blast downward.  A good bit of the sand collects in the barrell to be used again.  A strainer to screen the sand before you reuse it is a must however.

Sounds like your pressure pot is better or maybe bigger than mine. Mine only holds 100lbs at a time and the B.B. just clogs up. I do use the B.B. in my cabinet and it works well. I haven't had trouble with dust at all. I'm using a big Craftsman shop vac on mine. The only complaint I have is the gloves didn't last long on mine.

Dont get discouraged. Sand blasting does a GREAT JOB of cleaning metal!!! Buy a good/great air compressor and keep at it. It leaves a surface thats great for priming and painting. I wire brush some small things but the big stuff gets blasted!!! Ryan

Orschelen's had Black Diamond (Black Beauty) for $7.49/bag last week.  Tractor Supply has Black Diamond for $7.99.  Northern Tool also has Black Diamond.

    I run a 80 galllon compressor with 32 CFM, it sounds like alot but when you're blasting on a hot humid day the compressors efficiency goes way down!

Just curious a bit here, has anyone tried using the "recycled" glass media on tractor sheet metal.  I recently used it on some sickle bar parts and found it worked real well, plus there was almost no dust, and as it is recycled from glass there are no issues with silicosis as there may be with sand.  Cost is about 6-8 bucks a bag depending on where you get it.

Toneman1 wrote: Just curious a bit here, has anyone tried using the "recycled" glass media on tractor sheet metal.  I recently used it on some sickle bar parts and found it worked real well, plus there was almost no dust, and as it is recycled from glass there are no issues with silicosis as there may be with sand.  Cost is about 6-8 bucks a bag depending on where you get it. Thanks,

I like to use glass beads in the small cabinent blaster.  It is great for small parts, nuts, bolts, washers, small brackets, and it feeds better through the small nozzle, gun, and suction hose.  The larger cabinets with the big suction hoses can use silica.  The big outdoor pot blasters are good for doing the big parts and I use black beauty or silica.  I haven't done a lot of sheet metal, but I know the pros recommend soda blasting sheet metal to prevent warping or cutting the metal.  I've even seen the glass beads in the small cabinet seem to "move" metal if I hold the gun in one spot too long, but the soda blasters are much better at stripping paint but not doing damage to the metal.  Save yourself some trouble and use a scraper to remove any heavy paint runs or globs, dried grease, melted rubber, tar, or anything else that's thick and soft.  The blast media will just bounce off that stuff and you'll waste time and media trying to cut through it.