Greetings!
I bought a portable sand blaster from Harbor Freight last week and thought I'd give a review for those of you who are considering it. It was advertised at about $135 right after the Fathers Day Sale that I totally missed. By signing up for the $35 Gold Membership at Harbor, I saved about $35 on the unit. So, buying the sandblaster allowed me to get the Gold Club membership for free and I'll receive coupons for deeper savings by virtue of my membership. THAT was a pretty good deal...as long as the sandblaster worked well.
I took it home and bought some sand the next day at Bi-Rite Lumber in Sunnyside, the local lumber yard. It was very coarse. It clogged immediately and no effort on my part would allow more than 1 second of sustained use. The next morning I dumped all 100lbs back in the sack and went to the local ready mix where I buy my concrete. They had a bag of #70 sand that had an identically marked bag except for the item number. This worked great! It flowed well and took the paint and rust off Gary's inner fender panels with serious determination. It could be that the lumber yard also sells the #70 sand that worked so well. I'll have to check because I have friends (and blog readers) at the lumber yard and I'd prefer to spend my money there. One of them (Bob) is a die-hard car guy. I've never seen it, but I think he has a nice '57 Chevy pickup. Thanks for reading my blog, Bob!
Here's a picture of the packing box the sand blaster came in, and I put a picture of the sand I used that was the most successful for this job. It appears to be packaged in Washington, but I assume the most important piece of information is the #70 on the package, that tell you how fine it is.
Do I recommend the sand blaster from Harbor Freight? Yes, get one. It's item# 60696. The inlet air pressure is regulated by the supplied regulator, and although I started with 120psi, it did a great job with my line pressure at about 40psi. It seemed to work best if I also limited the amount of sand entering the hose. The switch at the bottom of the tank limits the flow of sand, and I ended up setting my lever at about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way open. All the controls for regulating the air and sand are controlled by full-size levers. It makes adjustments while wearing gloves easy to do. You'll want to wear ear protection, long sleeves and gloves in addition to the supplied hood.
Here's the sandblasted panel remounted on the car so I can determine where to drill the holes for the accessory lights. The panels were stamped into shape during the manufacturing process and it left stretch marks on them that I'll need to smooth out. Although I have a couple of unneeded holes left to fill, I already did plenty of work filling holes and patching a suspension cut-out on them as well. I'll use some body filler to make them disappear before painting them glossy black to match the firewall. It's gonna be a looker!
Thanks for checking in, more later!
Doug
As many of you know, I'm working toward a goal of getting this old '51 Chevy coupe running by the 4th of July. I think I can make it but I'm constantly being interrupted or diverted by important requests for my time. What I should have done (and what experience confirms), is to get the car running and then pick a deadline in my blog. There's no way I wouldn't look good. But then, that's not how I roll.
I added another electrical circuit to the air cleaner box. This is a switch to control the under-hood lights. I have a pair of lights I plan to mount in the inner fender panels that will cast some light on the engine compartment and I thought of mounting the switch on the air cleaner rather than with a spring-loaded switch that would come on whenever the hood was opened.
Knowing Gary (the owner of the car) as I do I can easily imagine him leaving the hood open while he's in the gym or at the country club and the battery would be dead. This is the best way. There's even a removable, flat panel on the air cleaner that works perfect for this.
I had originally painted the air cleaner panel red and installed this red toggle switch in the middle of it, but I thought it looked too obvious. I've since removed the red switch and installed a subtle black rocker switch with a cool, red LED that glows when the lights are on. I think it's a stroke of design genius on my part, but I'll let my readers decide for themselves.
Here's a picture of the packing box the sand blaster came in, and I put a picture of the sand I used that was the most successful for this job. It appears to be packaged in Washington, but I assume the most important piece of information is the #70 on the package, that tell you how fine it is.
Do I recommend the sand blaster from Harbor Freight? Yes, get one. It's item# 60696. The inlet air pressure is regulated by the supplied regulator, and although I started with 120psi, it did a great job with my line pressure at about 40psi. It seemed to work best if I also limited the amount of sand entering the hose. The switch at the bottom of the tank limits the flow of sand, and I ended up setting my lever at about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way open. All the controls for regulating the air and sand are controlled by full-size levers. It makes adjustments while wearing gloves easy to do. You'll want to wear ear protection, long sleeves and gloves in addition to the supplied hood.
Thanks for checking in, more later!
Doug
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