Soda Blasting at Home?

homewood4

Precision Fit
Oct 23, 2009
522
Citrus Heights & Tahoe
First Name
Greg
Willys Model
  1. Pickup
Willys Year:
  1. 1954
OK the Eastwood link got my juices flowing...
Is it really possible to soda blast in the driveway? Or in the garage? Set up folding tent with tarped sides and under to collect media?
Can I sweep up soda and dispose of easily?
How much media will it take to blast a truck inside and out?
How much time to do the whole truck?
Will soda affect my landscape?
Is there lead in the original paint?

Thanks
 
Interesting question. Where I worked, California EPA considered sand blasting/paint debris to be hazardous material and to be disposed of at a HazMat dump. But that's California. We got around it by mixing the sand/paint debris with cement and made a concrete pad. I will be watching this post because I am also tempted to use soda blasting at home. I believe if you make the soda/paint debris a solid, it would be legal to dump in the trash.
 
Well I think I am going to do it. After getting 2 quotes for soda blasting of $1,000 and $1,200 bucks for a bare body delivered I decided to look yesterday if I could rent the equipment. Well I can and its about $200 for 24 hours which includes a pull behind big air compressor to drive the soda blaster. That said I will stop by (this week if I can) and talk with the rental outfit about doing a combo of soda and walnut shells. I have heard that is the way to go on older multi-layered paint (7 layers on my Willys)...dunno.

I have done a lot of sandblasting in the past. We had a huge room and we wore these heavy canvas suits with fresh air blown in. The sand was very fine, it might have been a special blend??? But it was always ankle deep in there. I didn't do any clean up just blasted the metal.

I will post as this progresses on what I find out etc.
 
Anyone have experience with the Eastwood blaster? Utube videos show highpowered equip. Eastwood fideo shows progress a lot slower, to be expected, but don't want to spend forever either...
 
I think a lot of it depends upon the air compressor and the CFM. When I talked to the rental place they suggested I rent a big AC to do the job in lieu of my home unit...if I want to get it done in less than 24 hrs
 
Guys, you can save yourself a lot of money and labor by removing the old paint with a DA and some 40 grit paper.
Stay away from the sparper edges but concentrate on the larger, flatter areas first. Don't try to get the metal
shiny yet, just knock the paint down. Then go over the areas with some 120, then 220, then 400 or so to
progressivly get to the bare metal. Once your done with those areas , you can address the smaller areas with a
smaller right angle air sander. Once your ready, you can get the soda blaster and finish of the surfaces the paper
couldn't reach. You could even go back over the arger areas with the soda if you want to get a smoother finish.
It will go much faster than tryling to blast an entire vehicle because you will be spraying water a soda for a long time!
 
Rosati said:
Guys, you can save yourself a lot of money and labor by removing the old paint with a DA and some 40 grit paper.
Stay away from the sparper edges but concentrate on the larger, flatter areas first. Don't try to get the metal
shiny yet, just knock the paint down. Then go over the areas with some 120, then 220, then 400 or so to
progressivly get to the bare metal. Once your done with those areas , you can address the smaller areas with a
smaller right angle air sander. Once your ready, you can get the soda blaster and finish of the surfaces the paper
couldn't reach. You could even go back over the arger areas with the soda if you want to get a smoother finish.
It will go much faster than tryling to blast an entire vehicle because you will be spraying water a soda for a long time!
I cannot argue with you...BUT the very thought of sanding down a car body or even a shoe box I find repulsive. There are things in this world I do not like to do and sanding anything is one of them, but that is just me. In fact sanding rates up there with fingernails across a black board.

Since I plan on doing the inside and outside of my body and its 7 layers of mostly rattle can paint and 50 years of crud build up underneath I am going to opt for some kind of mechanical-media blasting approach.
 
It took me the better part of a week just to sand my roof out with 80 grit, and about 2 hrs to blast the rest of the truck with sand, which I did in my driveway. I'm going to blast my interior as soon as it dries up around here.
 
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