Another Brilliant Idea

I finally figured out why my media blasting was creating so much dust inside the cabinet all of a sudden.  Through the repeated clean-outs of the cabinet, I was also recycling all of the dust created from the cleaning process.  I decided to filter my blast media to remove the dust.  It worked splendidly.

Here is the solution:
I poured the media from a height of about 6 feet into a plastic tote on the floor.  As I slowly poured I had an oscillating fan blowing on the stream of media.  This caused all of the lighter dusty material to be blown away as the heavier blasting media fell into the box.  The trick is to not pour your recycled material too fast.  I also ran the media through this process about three times.  It came out looking like I had just bought it.

Who Knew?!?!?

I also replaced the window in my cabinet and taped clear plastic onto the inside of the fresh plexiglass.  This prevents the media from contacting the surface of the glass itself.  When the clear plastic becomes hard to look through, I just replace it.  I am using clear 8 X 11 sheet dividers for this instead of purchasing expensive blast cabinet laminate sheets.  I made another improvement to the box by sawing a dado into my glass mounts.  This allows me to slide in and out replacement glass very quickly.

What's Next:  More blasting.
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More Mods

I have been blasting a few more parts the last couple of days and have run into a problem.  My new media blaster is creating so much dust in the cabinet I can't see what I am doing!  Today I stopped by Lowe's and picked up a cheap bathroom exhaust fan to replace my current cabinet fan.  I am hoping the additional air movement will keep the air in the box a little cleaner.

Tried it for a few minutes and have the same problem.
Driveshaft recommended I cut some holes in the other end of the cabinet to allow the exhaust fan to create a draft through the unit.  This still did not clear the air enough, though it did help a little.

What's Next:  fix the media blasting issue!!
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Blasting Improvements

I decided to break down today and purchase a pressurized media blaster.  Harbor Freight had it on sale this month and with an additional 20% coupon I payed around 70 dollars for a 40 gallon unit.  Took me about 30 minutes to get it together and hooked up.  It did take a few tries to get adjusted correctly, but it made a huge difference!  I told Driveshaft that it cut the blasting time of a coil spring from about 20 minutes down to 5.  I am very pleased with it.

What's Next:  more blasting.

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Mediablasting

Today I started blasting away on some of the parts laying around.  Currently I have a syphon feed blaster attached to the bottom of my homemade blasting cabinet.  It works pretty good, but loses suction every so often.  May look into getting a pressurized blaster later.

These are the first few parts that I did.  I sprayed some Zero Rust Prep Step on the parts once they were clean.  The Prep Step is supposed to prevent flash rust for up to 30 days.  I don't believe it worked very well....the flash rust in the pictures happened by the next day.  I will have to just blast or wire wheel the parts again before powdercoating I guess.

Link to Zero Rust Prep Step:  http://www.zerorustusa.com/prepstep.html

What's Next:  More blasting.

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More Disassembly

The last couple of days I have removed the transmission mount,

motor mounts,

and the rest of the emergency brake assembly:

What's Next:  Start cleaning some parts.
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