Sandblasting Equipment

[haulnazz15]

I'll take pictures, whether the outcome is good or bad. It'll serve as a reference for those who might come across something similar in the future.

 

[tcreeley]

Try soda blasting. Less toxic. - rent equipment or hire a pro to do it.
Plastic up all of the surfaces, ceiling too. You'll never get the dust out with vacuuming otherwise. Sand blasting medium is toxic (destroys lungs). There will be dust in the air after you are done. Plan on washing things down- repaint all surfaces?

Here is a link to explain soda blasting- Soda Blasting - Paint, Dirt and Coating Removal

 

[sparc]

Interesting project. It would help if you put a box fan in the window, and if there's another window one there too. The door can serve as a fresh air intake. If you can keep a slightly negative air pressure in the workspace, it will greatly reduce the amount of dust getting into the rest of the house. You won't get a perfect seal with the plastic sheeting, so you want house air coming into the workspace at all the little leaks. Without maintaining a bit of negative pressure in the dirty area the dust will be a problem.

For masking off things you don't want blasted, you could probably get by with a few pieces of sheet metal with short "handles" to keep your body parts away from the action.

would it be better to pump clean air IN with the fans instead of drawing it through the room and trying to push it out the door. The fans would stay cleaner. OTOH putting positive pressure in the room would help to force debris into the rest of the house. Keeping a negative pressure could help reduce infiltration into the house. Maybe double seal the room. Domthe one wall like you plan and a second barrier at the exits from that room to the restof the house and keep a positive pressure in this area relative to the work space. Itonly has to be a slight pressure delta, measured in inches of water.

 

[3v0]

I would go with negative pressure. It is your best chance to keep most of the dust out of the rest of your house. Use cheap box fans and toss them when you are done if you have to. Make sure the wind is now blowing it back into the house too.

You have to have enough air leaks into the enclosed area to allow air flow to carry the dust away.

Good luck.

 

[crazyal]

I would take some time and try to blast a few rocks from outside first. You may find that you'll actually rough up the face of the rock with some of the more aggressive media. You might like the look of it or you may think it's ruins the look of the rock.

There are options for blasting that use a brush around the nozzle with a vacuum hook up to recover the media. Most of the ones are more expensive units that will recover the media, filter it, and then reuse it. You might be able to rent one. They allow you to blast without having to wear all of the protection equipment and greatly reduce the amount of cleanup needed.

 

[Code54]

Exactly what I was thinking - would limit the mess to 1/1000 and is much safer.

A unique type of sandblasting is dry ice sandblasting.

It would require some special equipment, but the only waste is what is blasted off of your wall.

 

[haulnazz15]

I checked into the dry ice blasting, but no one here rents the equipment that I've found. I have a cheap $15 box fan from HD that I'll stick in the window to pull air out of the blast area, as I think the negative air pressure will work well. I've got a 10x200' roll of 4mil plastic sheeting, so I'll use that to create the blast room, with all joints tapes to the ceiling/walls (the whole room will be cleaned/painted after this anyway). Additionally, I'll have some tarps on the floor over a layer of plastic to help reclaim the media. I'm also going to drape a second barrier a foot behind the initial one to try and have a second trap for the dust. All doorways to other areas of the house will be sealed on both sides with the plastic as well.

 

[SPIKER]

Hauling there are also other media such as mentioned already the SODA but also WALNUT SHELL which is more aggressive than the SODA but much less aggressive than the SLAG. The shell is more $ however and not as "Reclaimable" as the slag. The shell however will take away the paint well without the heavy damage to grout & rock. It may take slightly longer than the slag as well due to the less aggressive & lower weight. It also is 100% non toxic & can be dumped out back other than the latex mixed in once the job is done.

Mark

 

[3v0]

As I mentioned in an earlier post. You want some air flow with the negative pressure to move the dust. Without some place for some air to enter the blast area the dust will just hang in the air.

 

[haulnazz15]

As I mentioned in an earlier post. You want some air flow with the negative pressure to move the dust. Without some place for some air to enter the blast area the dust will just hang in the air.

Agreed. The box fan will pull air OUT through the window in the picture. What you can't see in that picture is the back door to the patio just to the left of the fireplace mantle. That should draw air across just about the entire work area, aside from the small section between the bar and the wall.

 

[allen in texas]

After I read all this, I can completely understand that you want to do it yourself, perhaps because of the money primarily but also because of the sense of satisfaction you get from doing something like this.
Still, I think I would bite the bullet and hire this done by someone that has the proper equipment and experience to do it properly with the least amount of damage to your brick and morter. But I do wish you luck. Any suggestion I had as far as a method of removal has already been covered but I will say this...I HATE "sand" blasting. Any other media would be better and although I can't comment directly, I saw a demo of the dry ice blasting and that was awesome my friend. Like I said, it's all been covered.

Oh yeah, if you find who painted this, thump a knot on their head for me too.

 

[haulnazz15]

Well, I went ahead with the project. Here's a few pics of the blast room and final product. Rented a 300lbs blast pot w/#3 nozzle, dehumidifier, air-fed hood, and 185CFM compressor. Here's my notes on the project: It went well, and was every bit as dusty/dirty as was described to me in this thread. However, my blast room held up perfectly and contained all of the dust/media as desired. The actual process of blasting went quickly, but the amount of dust created during blasting made for extremely low visibility (akin to not being able to see your hand 12-inches from your face) after less than 5 minutes of blasting time. The low-visibility resulted in 5-10 minutes blast periods followed by 10-15 minute periods of letting the box fan clear the dust, then rinse/repeat process. The rock/grout was cleaned about as quickly as the blast pattern swept over it, but it did take the "natural face" of the rock off. All in all, I had the blast equipment running for less than 4 hours all said and done, and was pleased with the result.

If I were to change anything, I probably would have wanted to try the dry ice blasting (searched locally, but none available) or a softer media to limit the little bit of abrasion to the rock face/grout. I would have loved to have had a smaller nozzle, too, as even the #3 nozzle has a bore you could probably bass a BB through, and resulted in a lot of media use (700lbs I believe = 350lbs used twice). It would be interesting to see if my smaller 100lbs pot with the 50% smaller tip diameters would have been better in terms of managing media and dust, but I'm not interested in finding out at this point, lol.

From here, I still need to spray down the stone a bit to clean the remnants of the dust off of it, then look into option with adding color and/or sealant to finish it up. May try a light sponging/dry brush on it to give it some contrast, unsure on it at the moment. I do appreciate all of the knowledge/tips you guys gave, it made the project that much easier. Let me know if you have any specific questions about it.

 

[CliffordK]

It looks nice. Hopefully the blocks look good when closer to them too.

Do you have a little red left near the minibar, and near the door, and along the floor in front of the hearth? Anyway, I'm glad to hear it worked out for you.

I'm sure you'll also like the lighter colored room.

Dry ice, of course, would have given you a lot of ice vapor in the air, so visibility might have been a bigger problem.

 

[haulnazz15]

Yeah, there's a little bit here and there, but visibility was basically zero down near the floor, so I didn't get too over-zealous when down that low. I also didn't want to sandblast a hole in the tarp/floor plastic, so I conceded a little at the bottom to use the paint stripper/wire wheel there.

 

[3v0]

Well done and kudos.

It takes airflow to move the dust out. More fans and bigger holes on the negative pressure setup.

 

[haulnazz15]

Well done and kudos.

It takes airflow to move the dust out. More fans and bigger holes on the negative pressure setup.

While that is true, my major limitation with the airflow was that, with the box fan on high, it was sucking in the plastic sheeting at the same time which decreases the workspace. Perhaps with one fan blowing air in, and the second exhausting the air, it would have made it more neutral as far as the plastic sheeting goes.

 

[Code54]

Excellent work!

 

[SPIKER]

Didnt' think about mentioning using two fans blowing air out down LOW and one fan sending air back in up high to push dust down and out.

The Walnut Shells would been a better choice to limit the amount of rock/grout damage.

I ended up SB a shower stall in my Barn Floor, it was only 3x4 or so and I figured dust wouldn't be that bad an issue so didn't tarp it off. ended up covering EVERYTHING with layer of concrete dust... on UP NOTE the Tile should stick like crazy...

I used one of the DUROCK BOARDS to lay across the opening to contain the sand/garnet. it worked well enough and I just used a upgraded paper face filter with a cheap welding helmet with a old dress/skirt up over the top. I used a vacuum blowing air in thru window under the skirt into back side of helmet. STILL got some dust whiffs though...

Always hate the open area sand blasting. FYI I should have hooked up my Dust Collector and blew out the window with it but only used single box fan myself....

I have some pics on Photobucket and the Tiling Pole Barn Shower" thread is in the "project" tab.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/276715-adding-shower-barn-tile-questions.html

I tried Grinder first but gave up as too stinky grinding off the water based finish
that C was manybe 15 seconds of good flow of sand but in the corner 5 min I could not see like U had to take 5 min off and 15 off breaks.

Mark

 

[haulnazz15]

I agree, Mark. The pecan shells would have been a better choice on the media, albeit a good bit more expensive and generally one-time use. I had a cartridge respirator, but didn't need it at all when using the air-fed helmet as I didn't even get a whiff of dust. I did use the respirator when walking through while the dust was settling and while cleaning, though.

 

[2458n]

Nobody told you that the CFM of air from the compressor wood overcome the box fans pretty quickly. You soon learned this. I have alot of flagstone walls that have been cleaned up using Black Beauty. Started and did not know where to stop. I hoped you rented the Kit on a weekend and that you enjoyed it as much as I did. Your project looks great.