Cadflat HF Sand Blast Cabinet Upgrades Project.

[Oddbod]

Congratulations! Nice work as always.

River, I'm glad you liked it.
Since I dont own a Patrol, the least I can do is make perifial offerings that may help or interest others in this group.
Its been a great recovery project for me and my situation.
I just did bits and pieces in small steps when I felt well enough to do so.

Most folks could handle this kind of mods when broken down into small parts.

[Oddbod]

Thanks for the updates! I'm toying with following your lead to improve my blast cabinet

Fifth, my vacuum is holding up well and for a small unit and it really pulls the dust away much better than I had anticipated.
I had my circular air/in vent open fully.
If closed it to half the suction is so strong, it picks up the gloves and holds them out horizontally.

Just a caution -- a few years ago I was dabbling with the vent on mine and admiring the way the suction would inflate the gloves (deflate? -- weird... it's a vacuum). Anyway, I guess I got a little greedy and closed off just a little more vent and almost instantly the window glass shattered!

j

Wow Faux40, that must have been a bit of a shock to have your glass break.
I have used two layers of glass as per the YouTube guys advice.
The inner glass is around 3mm thick and is considered sacrificial, while the outer is around 6mm thick and considered the protective layer.

So far I have no complains about this structure with the glass but dont want to experience what you had...
I dont see myself using that lift up window door all that much, but it will be handy on those odd occasions.
The side door even after doing the suggested mods covering thos dimple impressions still drops sand every time I have opened the door.
I am thinking of adding some kind of light flashing along the lower edge of the door to see if I can stop it all together.

[Oddbod]

Well, one hinge is finished, painted and now installed.
So, I move onto the the 2nd hinge.
That too has now been sand blasted and ready for primer.

Each hinge has taken me about 1 hour to sand blast.
The time required should be a round 20 minutes each in my estimatations now that I have used this unit.

You may remember, I was having difficulties tuning it.
What I have learnt after blasting both hinges is that;

a) My sand blast nozzle opening, would be better the next diameter size up.
b) My grit came with the unit and appears to contaminated with brush fibres and paint chips.
c) With the current temps and season, my grit is possibly damp (damp air) but not that noticeable.
d) Tuning the air bleed is critical and it seems maybe my original settings were a little lean, I open the tap right up and it did improve flow.
e) I still suffer from an intermittent flow but it is not nearly as bad as the previous day, probably caused by dampness is my guess.

I open the vacuum filter and dustd it out.
The dust is directly above the filter in the pic, the mark to the side and higher up is not dust, just a mark in the paving.
Pic attached, which shows a collection of fine powder dust, that was after lets say 2.5 hours of running.
Obviously not that much IMHO, but I will regularly clean it from now on.

I am getting the impression that paint is probably more difficult to remove than surface rust.
Well adhered paint and multiple layers with a good primer really makes the going slow at times.

Finally, when performing at its peak, this units works great, so I will persist with fine tuning as I see the rewards be of great benefit in the workshop.

I am loving it.

[Oddbod]

As a project goes, I think the sand basting cabinet is finished and meets my needs now.
I have decided to add an additional light, but dont see any need to post it here unless I decide it is news worthy.

The other good thing is my modifed hinges work a treat and it was well worth taking the time to fix them.

So now, I move on to building my pedestal bases for my lathe, which I plan to post on this Forum as well.
The darn thing weighs 450+ kgs as it stands...

[Oddbod]

I've recently read a very short comment on another forum regarding somebodies friend installing some kind of concrete vibrator unit to the sandblast cabinet as a means to get the used sand to fall back down into the hopper area instead of getting caught up on seams and ledges inside the cabinet.

Sounds like a out of left field solution, but I will pursuit this idea if I can to know how it works etc.
If anybody has any knowledge of such a setup, please share...

[RiverPatrol]

Sounds interesting anyway.

[Oddbod]

Look what somebody just sent me as an idea.

I'm sold it should work well.
I dont have a spare old die grinder, but I am pretty sure that I have another old air tool that may do the job.
Stay posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lATF_MK ... VenomChris

[Esteban]

Excellent idea! So simple also.

Can't wait to see your implementation.

[RiverPatrol]

Brilliant! I just got rid of an old die grinder a few months ago. I'm sure you can pick one up for a cheap.