i need some advice on my 66 i have the whole outside sanded and primered but the inside under the car and in the engine compartment could use either soda or sand blasting. i have access to a nice blaster that i can use with my air compressor. i have a 5 hp 60 gal with 12 cfm at 90 psi. i was going to use general sand or play sand that comes in bags. i know this contains silica and i was going to use a respirator. is this a good idea? i just didnt want to pay 500 for the inside underneath and the engine compartment plus the flatbed their and back. I think that i could do it for less than 100.

 

I did my car with the playground sand. You may have to scrape any undercoating off before you attempt to blast. My blaster wouldn't remove the undercoating but I had already spent a few days scraping it off prior to blasting so it was minor spots that I had to scrape while I blasted.

 

My neighbor uses playground sand on the whole car. I prefer safer media, but he's had success using it. Mine, I'm using soda, and will buy more aggressive media if it's needed.

 

I took mine to get media blasted with good results, paid 500 something if I remember right. However, I did sand blast my engine bay myself in the driveway using a cheapo blaster from harbor freight. it worked well, but eventually we had to replace all the valves and hoses with bigger ones because it would keep getting clogged. I used some sort of silica media if I remember right, or something similar. didn't use a respirator though, just a mask that covered my face...

 

Gotta be careful with sand. You can ruin a panel FAST. I'd use ground walnut shell media if it was me. You can use the same blaster.

 

walnut shells wont do the rust as good as slag or sand. You need a bunch of room, good ventilation, a hood, goggles, and a respirator. It doesnt matter what media you are using, you wont want to breathe the dust from the car.

Media gets everywhere, any little crevice, wall outlets, tools, and anything left open. Safety is the big thing because you can blind yourself and make a huge mess of your lungs way easy. Second thing is cleanup, you need to make sure you arent blasting the neighbors house or car, and piles of media in the yard is often unappreciated. Third thing is dont get too close, dont use a direct angle, always use a glancing blow and dont loiter in one spot.

Pressure blaster > siphon blaster.
Harbor freight, well do you trust your limbs and safety to a tank bought for $40? People have used them successfully, but I have had other parts and tools bought there fail unexpectedly. Always use caution with any pressurized tank or high speed particles, both can ruin a nice afternoon real quick.

You will go through a bunch of media, buy enough or learn to sweep and sift. I had 40 gallons when I started the Mustang and Cougar, I now have ten gallons of sand left, it really does go everywhere and I have had it covering cars 40 feet away. It works well for removing paint and rust in hard to reach areas, and it can be done by the average joe if he pays attention to what he is doing.

Have fun and be safe with it.

 

thanks for the replys i will only be doing the under and engine compartment so i think i will go ahead and do this. Thanks again

 

I used 2500 lbs sandblasting my 39 Coupe years ago. My short answer is that I blasted inside and out, I used 2,500 Lbs of sand and rented a LARGE commercial blaster, it did a great job, but, everything else being equal, I would PAY to have this done before I did it again.

This is a nasty miserable job. IMO $500 would be a bargain....

 

As JMD said i would also pay next time to do it again. My garage still has sand in nooks and crannies. I even put up plastic sheeting to hold down the mess.

 

One key thing you can do to ease the removal is give it a bath of "Aircraft Stripper". You can do it the day before and let it dry. I always removed as much as I could with the stripper/scraper and the DA before starting up the blaster. I did have only about a hundred bux and 12 or so hours in the job though. The CFM seems a little low on your compressor and their will be long waits between recharging the tank. The last car took 100 lbs of media (not sand) and I was able to recover and reuse it a time or two It was all took down to shiney metal. I used a large piece of 6 mil poly and broom and a cheap can strainer form "Wally World" and it worked well. I will agree with JMD, it is a nasty job and the 500 bux may very well be worth it. Also playsand can cause serious respiratory diseases like silicosis (pneumoconiosis). I'n not sure what size particles the OV type respirators filter out but they may not catch the small particles (just a few microns) that cause the damage. Just food for thought.