Slick 60's

I'm looking for a better sand blast hood than the rag that came with my harbor freight blaster. I'm thinking I can supply filtered fresh air from a small compressor placed far away from where I am blasting. I'm willing to spend a couple hundred bucks max. What are you using?

Well, it's good you're looking for a better alternative to what came with your blaster, but realistically, I don't think $200.00 will get you too far.

I spent my first ten years out of high school in a body shop, and in the very late 89's, also spent a few months working for a contractor sanblasting/painting at the Pulp Mill outside the town I grew up in.

In the bodyshop, we had a 15HP V4 Devilbiss compressor which supplied shop air for all the air tools used by the bodymen, air for blasting, and for spraying in the paintbooth. BUT the air used to supply the painters mask came from a small teflon piston compressor (as stipulated by OSHA), and also had a filter unit attached to it. The air coming from that big Devilbiss compressor is not suitable for breathing, unless it is run through a HUGE filter like this......

http://www.manusabrasive.com/bullard-breathing-filters/



When we were sandblasting in the Pulp Mill, air supply came from "Mill Air", good enough to blast with, but again not good enough to breathe, and the type of filter shown above is what we used, hard to get any sense of scale from a pic, but the filter we used in the Pulp Mill was roughly 5 to 6" in diameter, and about 30 to 36" tall.

For a hobbyist, although it still won't be cheap, the best bet is probably a small teflon piston compressor and an air fed mask, such as would be used for painting. This would get you clean air when blasting, and could also be used while spraying to cover up all that freshly blasted steel.

I'm not sure who sells all the gear down your way, but the Co I linked to is based right here in Edmonton, and sells through branches all over Canada.

http://www.manusabrasive.com/

Mfg division of Manus
http://www.modublast.com/index.html

I agree you have to be careful with any supplied air. The wrong source can poison you with contaminants from the compressor oil. I was lucky and a friend who teaches painting for PPG gave me a remote air supply back in the days of catalyzed enamels to try and save my brain. He got a lot of free equipment. Not as necessary now wit the low VoC stuff. You should still wear a mask with any blasting as you dont want to breath the dust.

Bruce: The most lethal part of 2K paints is the catylst, and I know a good number of the trades people I worked with, or was trained by at N.A.I.T. during my apprenticeship that have been affected by Polyisocyanate Poisoning. Not all of them are still above ground:(
So to say that an air fed mask is not as necessary now is about as far from a true statement as I've ever read.
Please don't take this as a personal attack, I'm just stating what I know from my time in the trade, and speaking with others I know who still are.........

bruceandersson wrote:I agree you have to be careful with any supplied air. The wrong source can poison you with contaminants from the compressor oil. I was lucky and a friend who teaches painting for PPG gave me a remote air supply back in the days of catalyzed enamels to try and save my brain. He got a lot of free equipment. Not as necessary now wit the low VoC stuff. You should still wear a mask with any blasting as you dont want to breath the dust.

Maybe I don't need remote supplied air for my small projects lasting 30 minutes or less. I have a good respirator. Perhaps I just need to make sure that the filter cartridges are appropriate for silica dust.