The Home Machinist!

rkcarguy wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:07 pm It warmed up to about 30* and I thought we were going to see rain tomorrow, but that grey sky is looming again and the forecast just changed to another 1-4" of snow. I don't know when it's going to end.....

steamin10 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:12 pm For my home shop I have a gutted out fridge with a plate glass front fitted into the door and covered with a piece of screen wire to deflect the sand. Thsi keeps the sand from etching and clouding the glass. Teh glass panel was stolen from an old cabinet style TV and held with a small angle iron for a mount. some RTV seals the gaps. A walk tread grate makes the floor about door level, the freezer door is reversed with the main door. The snad gun and hopper mostly sit inside the cabinet, and a small sand lot shovel reloads the dusty sand for another run. The blower unit is from a junk window air unit, and has a soft clothes dryer duct that leads outside. A light switch turns it and the two cabinet spot lights on for ample lighting. Two hand holes in the door are covered with rubber slits, to keep the majority of the sand in the abinet. The walls of the cabinet are lined with scrap plywood, and get replaced when blasted through. (has not happened yet, but are showing the many hours of wear.) The biggest problem is keeping the ceramic nozzles in stock. They break easy and only take a bump when used. I have been taking some copper tube and using that for a nozzle as they dont shatter, and are very cheap to make, but dont last all that long. It should be noted that any sand / grit/ media blasting is noisy, creats dust, and requires a lot of air. I have a 80 gallon Ingersol -Rand to run the thing, but you wont do it with a 20 gallon portable. I used a 100 lb LP bottle for air storage, to get started, and get that puff of air to do some work and then wait forever for the air to catch up. (I had stinky air from the used tank). But you can get the idea that we worked around the problems of the hobby. Blasting things to a a matte finsh was very nice and saved time over hand sanding and wire brushing to remove tooling marks..