[rob love]

I do all my own sandblasting. If you are only doing a single project, you are best off just paying a jobber to do it. $300 to 500 later, you just pick it up and it's done.

There are those tempted to buy one of the Princess auto sandblasters and do it yourself. Here are a few considerations:

-Pressure pot vs siphon feed and the vacuum type blasters. The latter two are fine for a few square inches, but are a joke when it comes to trying to do a complete hull, or even a frame or a fender. They are like painting a barn with a 1/4" artists brush. You must go pressure pot if you are serious about blasting.

-air supply: lots. You will not run any sandblaster on a modern 5hp single stage compressor.

-sand: if you are going to be buying those little bags of sand, expect to end up paying as much as the jobber will charge you to do the whole job. And if you have ideas about shovelling up the sand and re-using it, it is not as simple as that. The sand must be absolutely dry and not have any small stones, sticks or leaves which will clog the hose or nozzle and aggravate you to no end. Also, 75% of the sand blows away when you use it; even in a shed it will be everywhere but on the ground.

-SAFETY: long term and short term. The sand will cut you in half if it hits you directly. The splash back from individual grains of sand feel like bee stings. The dust will kill you in the long term, and when you are finished, you will have a big mess to clean up. Add to that, it is hot and extremely dusty work. Ideally you will have a second compressor supplying you filtered air to your helmet, but I have found that a respirator will suit the job.

I use a larger pressure pot, and for a compressor I have an old Ingersoll Rand 105 cfm air compressor trailer (a cmp trailer from around 1944). I live in prairie desert, so I am able to use sand I dig out of the back 40, sift any small impurities out of it, and because I have a shed, I can recycle a certain amount of it by re-sifting it. I keep about 4 garbage cans full on hand. If it rains out, I will have to wait 3 or 4 sunny days before I can harvest more. I use a full hood with respirator at all times, along with coveralls and combat boots. As a result, I am able to blast my projects for the price of fuel. A 5 gallon jerry can costs about $22 to fill, and gets me about 3 hours of compressor time. Each pot gets me about 1/2 hour of blasting. But to strip something as big as a carrier hull, I would expect a full day or so of blasting time. On the plus side, it is stripped to the level I like it, and not to the whim of the sandblast company.

To sum up, if you are just dong one project, call in the jobber. They can actually come right to your location and do it, or you can bring it to them. Either way, it will cost about the same.

Another tip if you are going to get your project sandblasted: Be prepared to paint immediately afterwards. An epoxy primer/sealer is ideal. Otherwise, the rusting starts immediately, and if you are in a humid climate, 2 or 3 days later the project will turn red. Sheet metal parts will disintegrate after only a few months.