This Cheap Pressure Blaster is Awesome!

Whilst I was in college, I spent two summers working highway overpass re-construction, in my hometown of Syracuse NY, during the mid-80’s. My friend was the son of the Construction company owner, and was the “sand blasting crew” leader. We worked nights, 6nights/wk, 12hour shifts, from 6pm to 6am, on actual in-use highways - the bridge decks were 3-4 lanes wide - the approach was to close off 1/2 the bridge deck, having a 4’ Jersey barrier separating the work zone from the open/live traffic lanes… lanes in which there would be 18 wheelers driving 75mph, literally 3ft away from where you are blasting, causing the bridge deck to vibrate and noticeably move/shake nonstop. The industrial strength sandblasting rig itself was an 18wheeler set-up, consisting of a flatbed trailer with a huge Iingersol-Rand Diesel engine attached to a giant compressor that fed a huge silo-like pressure vessel. Prior to getting to the job site, we’d spend a hour fueling the Tractor and the Diesel compressor rig, as well as checking out the piping, valves, O-rings, hoses, graphite nozzles, protective hoods, (personal air supply feeds, the helmet/hood communications gear, plexiglass shields that protect the glass facial guards in the hood/helmet setup, etc) plus we had to inspect the pressure vessel and clean out any moisture and sand clumps that accumulated. We’d then go up into the sand silo itself to inspect the sand-drop valves (this was a bit nerve racking in that you’d respirator-up and climb the tower ladder to enter the sand silos, rig up into a harness, well aware that you may have to venture out into the elevated sand field to break loose clogs of wet sand that are blocking the chute. Once the pressure vessel was full, you’d exit out of the silos, insure the vessel is sealed and locked, then rock-roll to that nights job site. From early May to EOM July (Football practices commenced in early August), 72hrs/wk@$40/hr, for 11 wks, earned in excess of $30k each summer, for what was truly bat-shit crazy, back-braking and mind-numbing physical labor of the worst kind, yet it was also cool in that at age 18-19, you were pretty much trusted to take on some very critical/dangerous work…

we need more people like him in the world.. Excellent presentation and very informative. Packed with good information. Thanks for posting..

If you blast with glass WEAR A GOOD RESPIRATOR RESPIRATOR RESPIRATOR RESPIRATOR RESPIRATOR RRESPIRATOR because once the glass particles is in your lungs it is there to stay forever.

This was LITERALLY MY Shop Teacher Guy!! Mind blown, makes sense. Great to 'see' you again Sir.

If you want to get every ounce of goodness out of your media, find or build about a 2' - 3' tall stand for your sifting element (whatever it may be). I use a stand from a long-dead table saw. When you sift your media you can actually separate the broken down media from the still-useful media by positioning a regular box fan to blow the lightweight stuff aside as it drops to the ground. It's a little tricky to get it right but, once you've got it, it will help keep your media at a far more effective level than just recycling the ruined media along with the stuff that's still good. And those cheap blue poly tarps HF used to give away are the perfect, no heartburn tarp for catching blast media.

For anyone that is into DIY and wants some real rust removing power, nothing beats one of these pressurized pot blasters. This video showed how useful they are and the modifications he made. Brilliant ! Cheap to buy and easy to use.

Well... There we go, Sir! You've earned my sub/follow/whatever. This was great stuff and you remind me of MY old shop teacher, some 35 years ago. I held an awesome friendship with Mr. Tom Butler until he passed from COVID complications at the ripe age of 96. You have that same camber and flow he did... It made him special. You never felt like Tom was talking down to you as he explained things. It's a lost art of teaching and storytelling, being able to pass knowledge by words without droning. Well done!

This is one of the best videos I have seen on you tube. A lot of good information with the feeling he has done this hands on. Great!

Fantastic video! Thanks for all your efforts and showing the upgrades/mods you did.

Glad I found your channel. I had a shop/mechanic class in high school. My teacher had a wealth of knowledge and could have made more money but he loved to help others .

This is an excellent job of explaining this device to a clueless newbie like me !! They should sponsor you !! Very thorough and i will take ALL your advice up. Thanks again !!

Excellent presentation and very informative. Packed with good information. Thanks for posting.

This is a really good tutorial, with lots of tips and tricks. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks, great overview for DIY to keep the cost down, really good tutorial

Great video, very informative. I restore vintage tools and other metal objects. i’ve been looking for a sandblaster for a while, and I believe I’m going to go with something that’s similar to your set up. Thanks for all that info...

Thanks. Wish I had checked out blasting earlier for a project I did. But now I know more.

We used wet blasting years ago at the Corvette Bodyshop I worked at during the huge GM peeling paint days. It was so much easier to deal with the mess in our bays that way. We were stripping dozens of cars and trucks weekly to deal with that waterborn primer issue.

Excellent video. You got a new subscriber because of it. This is the exact video I needed to change my blasting ideas into blasting reality. Kudos

we need more people like him in the world.

Great and informative presentation!