Re: Going to sandblast trailer, any wisdom?
I do a fair bit of my own blasting. In fact, I just finished blasting and priming my 24' horse trailer. What kind of pot are you going to use? The pressure pots work the best. We don't use anything fancy, just the cheap pressure pot from Northern Tool and it works great. Ours is just like this
one. What kind of compressor do you have? Find someone in your area that sells abrasive on a large scale, i.e. for commercial blasting. You should be able to get it for ~$6/50lb. Unless your compressor is larger than 30gal and 15cfm, make sure you get 2 more bags of abrasive than you think you will need. It takes more when you have less pressure available. Forget about coal slag unless you have a commercial blaster. Even though it comes in a fine grade, and is cheaper, it clogs these types of blasters very easily. We use medium grit silica-free abrasive in ours.
We remove the wheels and hubs on trailers (as TD suggested) but not the axles. We tape the spindles with duct tape. Make sure the spindles are 100% free of abrasive before reassembling the hubs/wheels.
I don't know if you have sandblasted before, so if you haven't be aware of the following:
1) Abrasive goes everywhere. There should be nothing within 40' of the trailer that you don't want it on.
2) Wear a good hood, long sleeves/pants, boots, and welding type gloves.
3) When you're ready to run, start the airflow first and then open the valve for the abrasive just enough that it keeps flowing. Shutting it off is the reverse - abrasive valve first, then open air valve all the way briefly to purge the line of abrasive and shut it off.
4) You don't have to blast everything into the white. Clean is good enough.
5) Blast at a 45deg angle away from yourself whenever possible. The more abrasive that hits your eye shield, the faster you won't be able to see through it.
6) Be safe and always keep the nozzle pointed in a safe direction.
In my area the cost of renting the pressure pot, compressor, and the blast media will run more than the $250 that a blast shop will charge.