Jeff, you make a very good point about sand blasters not removing
grease. If you have a pressure blaster, then you most likely will have
a hood over your head, and it gets hot, you sweat, it steams up, and
your vision is not so good any more. As a result you see something and
think it's stubborn, and you keep blasting, till you figure out that its grease.
Experience is a great teacher, and you learn.
Pressure blasters are good for lots of work, and large work. Suction
blasters in a cabinet, which you can make with plywood, are good for
small stuff, and you can switch from sand to glass beam media. Glass
bead media is expensive, and you need to reuse it as much as possible,
for the cost factor, but you should not use sand on alum, as you will
ruin it.
None of this is rocket science, but if you want to finish something
right, blasting is the way, as it really cleans up the metal, and gives
a good finish for the paint to bite to. English?
BTW, I sand blasted my crossmember in my homemade plywood cabinet, by
putting in 1/2 of the crossmember in the cabinet, and covering the hole
with a old blanket. Worked fine, as at the time, I did not have a
pressure blaster.
Just time and learned experience.
Larry
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