Princess Auto sand blasting cabinets

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Good to know haha shit eh

Yeah, I'm just trying to give anyone who decides to buy one of these things a heads up. It totally does not work worth a crap as it is sold, you've got to be prepared to mod it up.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Here's the new gun:

It was about $30 from PA. Definitely works better than the one that was included, but it's also pretty janky. They had a much more expensive one made by a real brand, I went back and forth on it and figured I'd try this one. I'd say it's fine with the crushed glass. If I had a bigger compressor and lines maybe I could justify the bigger/better gun, but if I'm going to do that it would be down the road.

I did wind up modding the bucket again:

I don't know if it will work better or not, it probably will. The other setup worked find in that the water trapped everything but the ultrafine dust. That dust the vacuum should have caught, but it didn't because it has a horrible flow in the design. This is now pretty bojang, but I didn't feel like buying anything and that's what I had for previously enjoyed ABS lying around.

Shop vac micro:

The way it's designed the filter is not sealed onto the hose, so fine dust has no issue bypassing it. Honestly this will be the last Shop Vac branded anything I buy, they build some crap products and ride on their name.

The "fix"

I jammed another piece of ABS in there and a bunch of free (expired) clear silicone. I'll see if it fixes it next time.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

The bucket did trap everything that wasn't fine dust. I dumped a lot of it out with the water, but you get the point, the chunks went in the water even using the vortex particle separator concept versus making it like an oil bath air filter.

This did reveal that I had good media being blown into the dust collector though. So perhaps more baffling is in order? Either way, with running crushed glass it's not like it's expensive to waste a bit of it.

[Muckin_Slusher]

How much air compressor do you need to run that?

I've got a ingersoll rand SS5 (5hp, 60 gallon) and I've been considering a blasting setup. I've also got another 3ish hp horizontal compressor I can also run. I've also got a second 60 gallon tank I can add if it would help.

I do realize that adding tank storage is a bandaid solution, but I can live with "blast" and "wait" for now...

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

My compressor is some sort of PA pile of trash 60 or 80 gallon I got from a place I worked, and it's about the same size pump as your IR. However, it only charges the tank to about 120PSI max (I think it's on at 80PSI and off at 120PSI), which I've debated adjusting. It keeps up fine BUT I'm only running 1/2" hose and it goes through a convoluted manifold and whatever else because my compressor is outside and my shop is plumbed with 1/2" PEX, so there's probably 200' of 1/2" hose off the compressor with a ton of elbows and whatever else to restrict it. With that much plumbing the pressure drops real bad while in use, ideally you want a steady 110-120psi at the gun.

I think if you wanted the thing to really rip you'd want 3/4" hose with a minimum amount of length/turns between you and the compressor. And the bigger gun they sell: https://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/ ... -p8438988e (or some other better gun)

The other question is just how much you're going to use it. It didn't take long to do a 17" wheel once I had the thing working, and that's about the max size of part that fits in it. So, if you're just doing small stuff and it's not production, I don't think going crazy with 3/4" hose and multiple compressors or gang tanks is needed.