Thread: OK to sand blast?

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I'm getting ready to tackle the floor / wheel houses in my 35 Plymouth. Wondering if sandblasting is the proper method to get down to bare metal or is it necessary to use some other process. I'm looking at buying a sand blaster but wanted to make sure 1st.
If yes, any suggestions on sand blasters?
Thank you.

OK - I think that begins, at least from me, a question back to you. First of all, are those fender well/wheel houses in good enough shape for media blasting? Secondly, have you tried the other and more obvious methods - that being scraping and rotary wire brushing? The reason I'm asking this is to be successful with media blasting of that scale is that you really need a very large compressor a pretty big hose and nozzle. One of those little hand held siphon feed units just wont do the job that I'm guessing you will need on an 80+ year old car. If those area are really crusty and have rust holes, fabbing up replacement wheel wells and floor boards would be my way of handling this. Floorboards are relatively easy, the wheel wells - might have to find another brand, i.e. Ford or Chevy that's close and modify to fit as I have never been able to find elderly MoPar body part.

As always, photos will tell us a better story

I agree with IC.......you will need a big nozzle blaster and a good 2 stage 80 gal. compressor and if you have never sand blasted with sand, you need to know some stuff. Things like not warping the panels is the main thing. Most guys use soda blasting nowadays. It only removes the paint and light rust but will not remove heavy oxidation. You also have to remove the residue that is left after soda blasting.
You might be better off using a good paint stripper and a wire wheel you can attach to a disc grinder.

Here's a post I did on fixing sandblast damage. Too much pressure, the wrong media, any number of things can cause stretching and warping for someone who hasn't done it before. Not saying not to do it, but I'd read up on the subject first!

Sandblast damage repair

Silica the material in sand to breath that in is bad for you.You really need a respirator/hood if you get into the size blaster you would need to do the job.Sand isn't easy to clear afterwards.Try as you may,while painting the spots you couldn't blow out will allow sand to get into what your trying to finish paint.

This is a very strong knowledgeable company that has been in the business for many yrs who could best advise you.

TP Tools & Equipment

The bad thing about blasting is that you will have sand everywhere. Isn't cheap either. Google sabdblasting in your area and see if you have someone local around to do it. Might save you money and usually they are experienced. You can block the areas that shouldn't get hit. If you have the outer skin showing from the inside, they really shouldn't hit that area to hard as you can see what happened to that guy on that site that was listed. I take the big parts to a guy in our area because of the cost and mess. Especially the mess. You can always cut out the bad spots after it's blasted. Good luck.

To add to the mix, if you blast you don't want to use sand for places you're going to paint. The silica will be very hard to get off of the surfaces 100%, and any left behind will fisheye your finish. If you do choose to blast use the right media and protect yourself.

This is just the kind of discussion I was wanting! Thankx.
Ok..............1st off I tried to post a picture but didn't get far. said file too big?? (one pic too big)?? I'll have to figure that out. My line of thinking was that I might invest in a sand blaster (Eastwood $200 to $500) if that was the way to go figuring I'll be using it a lot in the future. I know you have to be careful with warping but thought perhaps the floor was OK to blast. I'm good with wire brush on drill or whatever method is recomemded.
Yes, the wheel houses and a lot of the floor are in pretty good shape other than surface rust. I just didn't know what the "obvious method" was.
From what I'm hearing I think I'll scrape / brush and see how it goes. I have the body on a rotisary and, while I can roll it outside I can't very well transport it to some place to hire it blasted.
Thank you very much for the help so far.

Sandblasting the floor, inner structure and bracing shouldn't present a problem.... Do you have enough compressor to handle a good sandblaster? As the guys mentioned it takes a big one! If you plan on using a blaster on other projects in the future, you'd do better to get a good one the first time!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Sandblasting the floor, inner structure and bracing shouldn't present a problem.... Do you have enough compressor to handle a good sandblaster? As the guys mentioned it takes a big one! If you plan on using a blaster on other projects in the future, you'd do better to get a good one the first time!

Do you have any suggestions as to what a good one would be? I understand that I'll prob have to upgrade my compressor. I will check out TP Tools & Equ. Thoughts on Eastwoods stuff?

Just to give you an idea on just the compressor you will need, on average a 80gal. 2 stage is around $1500-1700. The blaster is going to be in the $300-500 range.

20 gallon blasters are pretty cheap on ebay. Less than 200. With these and a regular 60 gallon compressor, you can probably get by with. The thing is that you blast a section and let your air build up while your refilling the blaster. Menards has a black sand that cuts pretty good. It's hard to reuse the sand unless you sift it. If you reuse the sand and get something big in it, then you have to empty your blaster which could suck. I use a welding helmet with a leather piece of material attached to it which works pretty good.

On my camera after I take a picture I can edit the contrast before adding it to the computer to make the picture work.

Some of the Eastwood stuff is ok for home use, doubt it would work out well in a shop with a couple different guys using it everyday.... For a compressor there's so many companies now....Ingersoll-Rand is good, but so are a lot of others. Main thing, if you want a really good one that will stand up to a lot of use a 2 stage is the way to go.

my blast rig will hold around 200 lbs of media and my compressor is an 185 cfm diesel rig. but i only run 30 lbs of pressure. if you blast any panel at 90 degrees you warp it. period. you must stay at a 45 degree angle .

and i never use sand on a car .