OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum OutdoorKing Showcase my collection

hi , just a quick post of the mowers in the garage.

the second picture is my home made sand blaster which is big enough to fit a mower base into that all my resto's get cleaned up with before priming and paint as per pic 3 (waiting on warmer weather to paint)

Nice collection Steve,

I like your home made blast cabnet, I am making one up out of an old heater oil tank at the moment. What blasting tip / blaster & grit are you using?

I have modded an air dusting gun with a bit of old deron acetal (plastic) machined up to fit on the end, with a dripper line (4mm) tapped into it. I have not used it yet, as I only made it yesterday & tested it tonight, plenty of vacuum on the pick up. Be interesting to see how it goes anyway, might try baking soda through it first..

i bought a sand blasting gun from alltools for $22,i used ordinary washed garden sand (filtered through fly wire)to clean up most of the old dirty paint and grime,then i change it to glass for a smooth finish.when i built the cabinet,i made so it has a bung to drain and clean out the sand (it takes around 2 minutes),inside i have 3 layers of course to fine mesh to catch all the chunks.i use a cheap kingchrome vacuum to extract all the dust.it is heavy on air use so i have 2 x 85 litre air tanks as a reserve when i use it

The effectiveness of sand blasting relies on the sand grains being sharp. If you keep using the same sand, you will end up with a sort of weak bead-blasting process.

Way, way back I used a shot blasting system for removing really thick rust. The fairly large nickel shot smashed through the hard layers of rust and left a sort of stippled finish. Of course it isn't ideal for cleaning into the corners of lap joints: you should switch to sand blasting or chemical rust removers after the shot blasting is complete, to do that kind of detailing.

It is best to use a foot control for the blast, and just stop the flow each time the air pressure drops off a bit.

Particularly with shot blasting, which is a very violent process, be careful not to allow the ricocheting blasting medium to be deflected onto the viewing window. Even glass will become frosted in just a few seconds of that.

Ahhhh Safety!!!! damn good idea! Yeah, I have a cheapie air comp (2-3 cmf) to hook up with my bigger twin of about 8cmf, figured I'd need plenty of air....

Thanks for the tips grumpy!, was thinking of using perspex for the window with a disposable sheet over it, like the ones in the tool shops.

Nice collection of mowers Steve would like to see some closer picture of each mower.Anyway what sort of things would I need to make up that sand blaster box.That is exactly what I need,but I would have no idea how to or what I would need to make one.Did you have some sort of plan of how you made it?I would love to make one for myself.Would make it a lot easier to take the paint of my restores.

no plans,measured a victa 18 base,made the main box to be able to rotate it inside,piano hinge for the top and side door,got an old window from the wreckers,a couple of old down lights,the wire mesh for the filters was from the scrap metal yard,melamine from old kitchen cupboards.
all up for the cabinet including the gun ($22 from all tools with hose and spare tips)cost was around $50
garden sand $5 a bag from nursery,the dearest part was the proper bag of blasting glass about $40
i did make a lot of mistakes,this is what i found to work.
there are cheap sand blasting cabinet available at the tool shops starting for around $250,if i spent that the wife would kill me so i had to make one over time to hide i was spending more money on mowers

I like your method of keeping the costs descreet steve, lets all hope your wife never decides to read this! (I imagine if my missus tried, she would be bored after a couple of posts, engines are not really were her intrest lie!)

Can you take some more pictures of it? I think I'm going to give it a go.Would certainly be a better way.So where do you get the sand? I have tried getting sand but nobody that I have talked to can get me any.

the v shape collector has an angle piece in the back to send all the sand to the pick up,
the cabinet is 600 x 600 square,the height is 600 also,the gun hose goes through the side normally,i had to blast some trailer rims(rims with tires don't fit)so it was not put back properly yet,i use industrial cleaning gloves through the holes in the front held on with big hose clamps.
the only change i would still make is to angle the base so i don't get a build up in the cabinet