Thumper Club Forum

Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: Ian on December 12, 2016, 08:21:45 PM

Title: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: Ian on December 12, 2016, 08:21:45 PM

I recently wanted to repaint front and rear calipers on the SRX, but looked at all the nooks and crannies and decided that scraping/sanding were out of the question. Im too tight to pay for bead/vapour/(whatever other sort of medium) blasting so decided to think about a bit of DIY.
I located a spare compressed air gun at work, found a small plastic bottle with a tight(ish) fitting screw lid, and a short piece of hard nylon tubing (with a brass nozzle I turned to increase the "venturi" effect.)
Enclosed photos of after blasting and after painting/assembly/refitting.

Im pretty pleased with the results for considerably very little effort. I will take a photo of the "gun" itself next time I`m in work and post soon

 Ian

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Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: johnr on December 12, 2016, 08:31:56 PM

i bought a spot blasting gun for small bits from aldi for under a tenner. i was going to use soda in it.

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: timbo on December 12, 2016, 09:36:28 PM

They've turned out well nice Ian. What did you use as the blasting medium? And please post some pics of your set up?
I could do with something similar, for all the smaller stuff, qbut any bigger stuff I give to my local blaster who is really easy to pay  ;)

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: johnr on December 12, 2016, 10:07:26 PM

place near me sells baking soda in 25 and 50 kilo sacks!

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: Ian on December 12, 2016, 10:10:35 PM

Hi Timbo, firstly I tried casting sand (working in a foundry there`s plenty  of the stuff around). This worked well but was slow in getting rid of powder coating. then I found some "exhausted" blasting medium ( I don`t really know whats its called but its quite largish diameter before its used in the rotary blasters) The used stuff is quite small and black! So I got in a bit of a mess but it was cheap to do...that was the best bit about it. And Yes I will take some pics tomorrow.

Ian 

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: iansoady on December 13, 2016, 11:25:56 AM

Hi Ian.

Any pics of the gun, as that looks like an excellent way to clean small parts?

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: johnr on December 14, 2016, 01:06:04 AM

i will get a pic in the morning.

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: Ian on December 14, 2016, 11:54:46 PM

Hi Timbo/Iansoady, sorry or delay in getting pics on here, busy doing other jobs on the bike!.  As you can see from the pics, its very crude and simple, but pretty effective. As I said the medium I used was 2nd hand shotblast which was quite fine. Im sure any  sort of dry sand would do a similar job. I blasted into a skip at work so didnt bother with making a cabinet but Im sure someone on here will have ideas about that.
Hope it helps someone out anyway.
Ian :)

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Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: timbo on December 15, 2016, 09:11:17 AM

Thanks Ian, been looking at a few homemade set ups in YouTube as well  ;)

Title: Re: Shot/bead blasting
Post by: iansoady on December 15, 2016, 10:55:00 AM

Looks pretty straightforward - many thanks.