Sandblasting?

[Marnhullman]

I have started renovating small pieces of old agricultural machinery e.g. root grinders. The items are cast iron and so far I've done the de-rusting with a wire wheel in an electric drill or angle grinder. The items are then painted with Hammerite which claims it will adhere to and cover rust - so far the few things I've done look OK but time will tell.

The wire wheel process is very slow and isn't 100% effective so I was wondering about sandblasting? I have a DIY compressor which came with a set of accessories, one of which looks like it might be a sandblaster but there's no description on the box so I can't be sure - it just looks like a piece of kit I've seen advertised on a website!

The items I restore are bigger than would fit into any of the sandblasting cabinets I've seen advertised so I was wondering whether I could do the jobs outside? Also does anyone have any idea how much abrasive (I understand that sand itself is no longer used) gets used? Of course the bigger the job the more that'll be needed but generally are we talking massive quantities of abrasive and huge piles of debris being generated?

Grateful for any advice etc.

Regards

 

[Hitachimad]

If your restoring machinery, you want a fairly big setup ideally?
shot blasting as opposed to sand blasing, will remove much more in a much quicker time.
Expendable grits are the cheapest, or iron/steel shot, lasts longer but needs to be recycled back through ideally. Open air blasting is okay, but doing it in an enclosure can help keep the cleanup area to a minimum.

A heavy duty compressor and a gravity fed blast unit makes light work of anything.

Theres a lot of shot blasting places about, so might be worth shipping that side of it out. Its a horrible job anyway

 

[Marnhullman]

Hitachimad

Thanks - have more oe less decided to carry on with the wire wheel method or farm the shot blasting out.

Regards