Wet blasting cabinet

[MarkCan]

I built mine cabinet from second hand dry blast unit. Power 👊 in Canada, probably just  the Harbour freight in blue. I took it all apart and silicone all the joints.

[MarkCan]

If I had to do it again I would start with the brand new unit. Much easier to seal properly.
I’m on my second gun and the third is on the way. I’ve introduced several updates along the way and I’m still finding better ways to maximize the system capabilities.
1. Lights
That was the easiest. Second fixture I tried did the job.
Liteline LED Bar 9w 120v.
It measures 22 3/8” and fits in the window like a glove. All I had to do is remove the side clips.
2. Blasting gun. Not bad at the moment but quite wasteful on the air.
3. Slurry pump. Mine is only 3/4 hp and it does the job. The key here is to not create restrictions along the way. 3/8 ID hose with direct connection, pump to gun.
4. Slurry bucket. Any big box 5 gallons bucket will do. Get the second one. Remove the handle and cut the bottom part off (couple of inches under the last rib). Cut the top part vertically. Now you can easily place it on top of the other bucket without removing it from under the cabinet or disconnecting any hoses.
5. Fog. With higher pressure and volume comes more fog and less visibility. No matter how much light you put in there. The obvious solution is the vacuum. I don’t have the optimal setup here yet. At lower pressure all is good. Later vacuum just fills up. There are two reasons for it. Two much air volume and to small of an enclosure. More efficient gun will most likely resolve this issues. Not to mention the finish quality. For now I’ll jus add the bucket in line.
6. Window washer. Here I’m waiting for suggestions. Compact clean water cycling needed. No wiper. Just intermittent or steady flow on the glass.

[MarkCan]

Let’s see if I can get some vortex going?
There is some blasting to be done.

[Cees Klumper]

I did a bunch of blasting on my Lancia parts earlier this year. I put together my own blasting cabinet using a large Home Depot plastic storage bin, plastic pipe connectors and a $25 Harbor Freight blasting kit. I taped a piece of glass to the inside of the top so I would have a longer 'visibility life' than the plastic cover would allow. It worked a treat, although I was surprised at how quickly the glass became opaque and at how the visibility was impaired by the dust. A vacuum/slurry setup would address that, I now learned.
Still, I managed to do all the pieces I needed to without going higher-tech, and after that was all done I just discarded the empty 'cabinet' (the gun, hose, media etc is in storage). I can always make another one if I need to do more blasting in the future. Here the cabinet and an example of what I was able to do with it - a Lancia Fulvia battery tray and transmission mount:

[mdsalemi]

I am admiring these very creative blast cabinet builds! Honestly I am perhaps a little jealous. 😉

Rust, corrosion, wear, dirt, grease, are all things that must be dealt with in restoring parts. My own opinion is that you’re not done with restoring parts until they look as good as they perform. In that case the finishing becomes quite critical. One way to get them done is with a blast cabinet.

My latest project is restoring bicycle parts. While I don’t have a blast cabinet to assist me, I have been using a variety of chemical treatments. This includes alternating dips in both caustics and acids. The caustics are the concentrated degreasers such as “Oil Eater” or “Zep Purple”. Both of those do a fabulous job of removing dirt and grease. In my particular application I was removing 40 year old anodizing as well, restoring an old black finish back to the natural aluminum that I started with. This is followed by an acid spray, which is a chrome wheel cleaner which contains phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, and ammonium biflouride.

When my parts have gotten clean enough with these chemical treatments, and if they are small enough, I can then put them into a vibratory tumbler for final finish.

By the way for what it’s worth, Dawn dish detergent did almost nothing in removing old dirt and grease compared to the products I mentioned. Neither does modern mineral spirits paint thinner. The old stuff was photo chemically reactive and very bad for the environment. The new stuff is not but is not good for cleaning.

[wwheeler]

I agree that ZEP purple is very strong and works well. To make it even more effective when soaking parts like fasteners, use a piece of aluminum at the bottom of the container with the parts immersed in ZEP purple. The ZEP purple reacts with the aluminum and creates a vigorous fizzy action. That fizzy action really expedites the cleaning process and you actually can use less cleaning product.

I discovered this by accident when I was soaking some parts in ZEP purple in a small aluminum corn bread tin. About an hour later, the ZEP had eaten through the tin! AH HA! So now I just use small pieces of these aluminum “tins” to create a fizzy, foamy bath.

[mdsalemi]

I don't want to think of what's happening chemically when that aluminum is being "eaten" by the Purple ZEP Monster!

For the nastiest of stuff, I use my little ultrasonic cleaner. That, along with the vibratory tumbler are throwbacks to the days I owned a car wash, and was always refurbishing parts. The ultrasonic even has a heater built in. Nothing like a hot caustic degreaser and ultrasonics to blast through dirt and grease, followed by a polishing in the tumbler. Just wish these capacities were larger!

BTW, like ZEP will eat aluminum, conventional detergents in concentrated form, will eat through brass plumbing fittings. One of the thing I first did after buying the car wash years ago was remove all the brass and replace with stainless steel.

[wwheeler]

Zep purple cleaner is 11.50 ph out of a max of 14. So very alkaline. It is an extreme example of what can happen to the aluminum cooling parts in your engine that are exposed to alkaline coolants or if you let you coolant get too old.  That is why you want a neutral coolant at around 7 ph.