how to build a sandblasting cabinet

8/3/2019 How to Build a Sandblasting Cabinet

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How to build a homemade

sandblasting cabinet

If you've read my post about powder coating, which you probably haven't,

since its not done, then you know that in order to successfully powder coat

something, it must be properly prepped, and in almost every case, the part

you want to coat must be stripped down to bare metal. The most effective,

fun, exciting, dangerous, unhealthy, and generally guaranteed slaphappy

way of doing this is by sandblasting.

sandblast

[sand-blast, -blahst]

noun

1. a blast of air or steam laden with sand, used to clean, grind,cut, or

decorate hard surfaces, as of glass, stone, or metal.

2. the apparatus used to apply such a blast.

verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

3. to clean, smooth, etc., with a sandblast.

So basically, sandblasting is sand mixed in with air blasted at high speeds.

The sand does the same thing sand paper would do, minus the paper. Alright,

so my description isn't the most detailed in the world, but most of you know


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enough about what sandblasting does to not need a description or

explanation. Plus you're already on the internet so you shouldn't have much

of a problem finding more information about it, right?

My buddy Jim down at the shop keeps saying Media

Blast!, what the heck is he talking about??

Glad you asked. Sandblasting is probably the most commonly used term, but

did you know that people also call it media blasting, abrasive blasting, grit

blasting, shot blasting and probably a bunch of other stuff too? Personally, I

call it abrasive blasting, since I never use sand, and will call it that from here

on out.

The term "sandblasting" was most likely coined because the guy or girl who

invented the process probably used sand. Honestly, I'm just taking a guess

here. I'm too lazy to open a new tab in my browser and look up any real facts

to back that statement up; although, you have to admit, it sounds good,doesn't it? Oh, and if i'm wrong, consider this an apology.

Nowadays there are many choices of synthetic, natural, unnatural, semi-

synthetic, simi-natural, simi-unnatural, unnaturally synthetic and

synthetically simi-natural medias to choose from, and most, if not all of these,

are far superior and safer to use than normal sand. The main issue with

regular sand is that the dust created from sand contains a high amount of

silica, which inhaled over a period of time will cause a disease called silicosis.

Silicosis is something you DON'T want to have. Trust me, or look it up if you

don't believe me, or die if you don't want to look it up, but just remember

that I gave you options.

Abrasive blasting can be used for all sorts fanciness from heavy duty stuff

like blasting rust off of aircraft carriers to doing delicate work like etching

things or even giving your jeans that "worn out" look that everyone loves. But

just in case you were wondering, my main goal for blasting will be preparing

miscellaneous parts for a fresh coat of paint or powder.

Whats with the "cabinet"?

Abrasive blasting can be done without a cabinet, and it probably is done

more often without one; although again, I don't have any fancy charts or

graphs, nor much ambition to Google what I just said, so you will have to take

my word for it.

Blasting in an abrasive cabinet has its pros and cons like everything else on

this planet, with maybe the exception of wining the lottery. For instance, an

obvious pro is that its nowhere near as messy as blasting in your garage,


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which makes a lovely mess. Another benefit is that you can re-use the media

over and over until it has reached its end of life. I'm not saying that you can't

re-use media if you don't use a blasting cabinet, it's just a shit ton easier to

reclaim the stuff when its contained.

An obvious disadvantage is that the size of your work is restricted by thephysical size of your blasting cabinet, so no matter how hard you try, that

4x5 object won't fit into your 3x4 cabinet.

That being said said, I built my cabinet a little bit bigger than the biggest

project on my horizon: the rebuild of my 1999 Suzuki DR 350 that was

submerged in salt water for hours and hours during a hurricane that flooded

my city, including my garage

Save yourselves!

I'm not a genius, nor am I very inventive. I am just a guy motivated by thesimple needs to blast my motorcycle frame down to bare metal. The easy

route could have easily been to purchase a beautiful, professionally built,

long lasting, warranted abrasive blasting cabinet by xyz inc, but what fun

would that be? Also, I come from a long line of do it yourselves and I would be

doing nothing more than shaming my forebears by taking the road most

traveled and purchasing a shiny, brand new abrasive blasting cabinet. Ok, so

maybe it helps that the same size cabinet as the one I'm building would have

set me back almost 10 times the amount that I paid to make mine...

Disclaim-errrrr?

As I've said before in my post about powder coating, let me warn you now

that this is by no means a tutorial, how-to, or any other kind of guide meant

to be duplicated or copied, simply due to the fact that this is the first time

I've done this myself, and honestly I'm simply not the type of guy you want to

follow if the ship we are on is sinking. Buuuuttt...if you are keen enough, you

should be able to get the gist of things and might actually be able to

successfully follow my flab jab and clamor without leaving this earth. But

seriously, don't get pissed at me when you realize that I didn't mention

dimensions, or any other "important details". I just create this junk as I go.

Building an abrasive blasting cabinet

If I haven't bored you by now, we can finally start talking about what you are

here for.

The design you are about to read about is going to be 2' deep x 4' wide with

a height of 38". A cabinet this size allows me to comfortably fit my 1999


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Suzuki DR 350 frame and is a good size bigger than your standard $300-600

blasting cabinet.

The baseWhile I was in the process of planning out my design for a base, I happened

to glance over at a sturdy mobile bench that I built a while back. This thing

would make a solid base for my blasting cabinet and it just so happens that

the base is 2'x4' which is perfect. Of course the downfall now is that I have to

build another bench... Oh well, at least that gives me another article to bore

you with in the future. Heres what the bench looked like after a few

modifications made so I can successfully "mount" the cabinet to it.

My design is pretty basic and some of you probably know a better way of

doing this, but this concept came to mind first. What I did here was subtract

the thickness of my plywood (1/2") from the outer edges of the base and

screwed in 2x2s around the base using those measurements. This design will

not only allow my cabinet something to screw into, but it will also allow the

cabinet to be flush with the base. Another great feature is that when my

cabinet is done, I will be able to unscrew it easily from the base and transfer

it to another base (with a media chute) later. Whatever, It worked...

Like I just mentioned, my current design doesn't have the media "chute" that

most blasting cabinets have which allows for the media to slide down a chutethat resembles an upside down pyramid, although I do plan on adding that

real soon, so check back!

A close up of the wood work shows how I built the extension of my bench to

convert it into a base for my blasting cabinet. The distance from the 2x2 and

the base edge is the exact thickness of the plywood being used. A time

saving tip for this step would be to use scrap plywood to measure that


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distance instead of actually measuring it out. Oh, and don't forget to pre-drill

any holes because the 2x2s split easily if you don't!

The back wall

Now that the base is built, and might actually work, the next step will be to

start assembling the walls. I started with what I felt was the easiest cut to

start with - the back wall. Its a basic square cut measuring 4' wide by 38"

high. I put the DR frame on top of there just so I can get an idea of howthings would fit. Even though I am just started, seeing this made me feel

warm and fuzzy inside.


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The left side wall

The construction of the wall is our first angled cut of the day so the difficulty

raises a bit. I'm not a carpenter, so what I did to make things easy for me was

to draw this panel out on my plywood. I marked the depth of the base (24"),

the height for the glove panel (12"), the total height of the cabinet (38"), and

the minimum depth I wanted my cabinet to be, which is also the ceiling depth

(18"). With all of those dimensions drawn out, it leaves you with only one line

left, which will be the angled face (26 11/16"). Your face will be different

depending on how deep or shallow you want your ceiling to be. But be careful

here and make sure you end up with an angle you will feel comfortable with.

An 18" ceiling gave me a nice, comfortable, ergonomically (in)correct angle.

I suck at explaining things, so maybe the photos will help.


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The right side wall

The second wall can be created by doing the same thing as above, obviously,

and now you can see that she is really starting to come together!


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Pssst!..let me tell you a secret...

For those of you who are probably wondering how I am holding the plywood

pieces together, lets just say I'm using a method probably not suggested by

anyone who knows what they are doing. My method involves drilling through

the piece of plywood being held in place into the plies of the other piece of

plywood and screwing the pieces together accordingly. Don't even bother

trying this without pre-drilling your holes because it would just split the plies

apart and would not work at all.

Some of you might think it's a catastrophe waiting to happen and that I'm a

complete moron for doing it, but if done right, trust me, I'll be able to jump up

and down on top of the finished product. Videos will follow for anynonbelievers. Plus, the base of this cabinet is the only thing that will get any

real stress or weight thrown at it.

A ceiling is a handy thing to have!

Your blasting cabinet will not be much of a blasting cabinet if it doesn't have

a ceiling, now would it? And what do you get when you draw out the overall

length of your design by the top depth of your walls? You guessed it! The

dimensions of your ceiling! See... building without plans isn't so hard after all!

Lets review:

My cabinet is 4' wide

My walls (the the top) are 18" deep

My ceiling dimensions =


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If you guessed 4' x 18" than you win! If you guessed anything else, I win!

After the walls and ceiling come together, this thing really starts to look like a

blasting cabinet, kind of.

NOTE: This is where you start to get excited and start rushing your cuts. I'm

not one to say slow down and pay attention, after all, I am a measure once

cut twice type of guy, but these steps require a pretty good amount of

accuracy if you want your cabinet to look decent. Don't worry though, your

favorite sealant can seal any ungodly cracks if you aren't that steady with a

saw. I'm not.

The glove panel

Now it's time to cut the panel that will hold the gloves. My cabinet is pretty

wide and will have 2 pairs of gloves (4 gloves, duh!). I mentioned earlier

when cutting the walls that the glove panel will be 1'h and we already know

that the width of the cabinet is 4' so what does that tell us our glove panel

dimensions should be? If you guessed 1'h x 4'w than you win again!

After cutting 1x4 of plywood, I simply attached it the same way I've been

attaching everything thus far. The result is a nice panel ready to be cut for

glove clamp thingies. Also, that is me in the photo for anyone curious.


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What was once faceless shall now be seen!

Moving forward, we make the cut for the "face" of this beast.

Following the build as you go mentailiy, I measured the last remaining panel

and started cutting away. Everything would have worked out great except I

didn't put much thought in seam where the face and the glove panel meet.

These two pieces of wood didn't butt up against each other correctly at all.

Patience is indeed a virtue. Lesson learned. Lets try again.

So, after rethinking things, I wasn't quite sure how to (properly) figure out the

angle that I needed to set the saw to, and I wanted to learn. I'm no carpenter,

and I am a better carpenter than I am math wizard, so I was stumped. I knew

there were a few different tools that are used to find angles but I didn't have

any, or so I thought.

After a short while, I looked closely at a tool I used a lot but never really

looked closely at. My speed square! The speed square has a bunch of jibba

jabba that I generally don't pay attention to because I've always used it to

quickly square things up (hence it's name), but upon closer inspection (andwatching a YouTube video) I quickly understood that it's also useful for

finding angles! Who would of thought? Anyhow, after finding the angle with

the speed square, I set my saw and made the cut again, and things were

finally flush.


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Egad! How am I suppose to see through that thing?!

Now we have some choices. Make the door, cut the window, or cut the glove

holes. I chose to cut the window. You can choose my path or create your own

path. This is your choice, so choose wisely.

If you chose to continue down my path, congratulations, our next cut is an

easy one. This cut allows plenty of room for error because regardless of the

size hole you cut, the glass will cover it, unless you already have glass cut,

then you would have to cut your hole according to the glass size. The only

thing you must do here is leave yourself an inch or so from any wall, ceiling

and the glove panel.

What I did was took the measurement of what I knew my glass was going to

be and subtracted an inch from all four sides. That gave me the dimensions

for my viewing window.

Next, I marked the face with my level and cut it in place, but do remove yours

if you if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe cutting it in place.

HANDY TIP: For cutting, you should probably use a jig saw for this, but Iused a circular saw because I am impatient and awesome.


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The entrance (what was suppose to be the door)

Cutting the door using my "build as you go" mentality almost bit me in the

neck, because after I cut what at the time I thought would be used as the

door, I realized it wouldn't work at all. The good news is that even now, I can't

figure out a better way to build it than the way it turned out on accident. So

now, what should have been the door, is the "entry way".

Measuring it out was simple. I just grabbed my level and held it flush with all

5 sides while marking the inside edge of the level. If you don't want to do

that, or your level is too wide/narrow than just take off two inches or so

around the perimeter of the side of your choice. This will leave plenty of room

for the gasket(s) of your choice.

I chose to have my cabinet door on the right side because of where it will be

located, but you can put your door on either side, or even both sides if you

want.


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You can see some light shining through due to my lack of circular saw skills,

but nothing that a little sealant wont fix!

A (not so lovely) introduction to glass

This part was pretty exciting for me because I've never worked with glass

before, and all I know about it is that it will cut you if you try to karate chop it,

and it will mess you up if you swallow a bunch of it.

I was lucky enough to have scrap glass laying around, but there was one

problem: most of it was regular old window style glass. Cheap glass like that


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just shatters and is too easy to break. This type of glass isn't good for this

project.

Looking further in the pile I came across a few sheets of tempered glass

which would have been the perfect choice if the size was right, but once

tempered glass is tempered, it can't be cut without special equipment.

My diamond in the rough was a sheet of "safety glass". Safety glass is a sheet

of plastic (the "membrane") with sheets of glass glued to each side, like a

sandwich. Its used in places where the risk of cutting yourself is pretty high,

like in old automobile windows, or in glass doors. When broken, the glass just

cracks and the plastic membrane in between would prevent it from actually

coming apart into nice, sharp pieces, thus keeping your throat out of harms

way. Seems perfect for my project! Now I just need to cut it to the proper

size...

Cutting glass is a lot more fun than glass cutting you!

Now that I have my glass picked out, I need to cut it down to size. I knew of

only one tool for cutting glass, so I went out to The Home Depot and picked

one up. They had the basic tool by itself and one that came with snake oil. I

bought the one with snake oil because I always fall for that trick. You'll want

to use oil, any kind, to help keep glass particles from flying into your eyeballs

and to keep the blade lubed up as well. Probably for other reasons too, who

knows?


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So now that I had the tool, the instructions say to score a perfectly straight

line across a sheet of glass using the supplied cutting tool, then either tap the

glass with the ball on the end of the tool or lift and drop the glass from a

short distance while half is on your work area and the other half you want to

break of is not. The piece should cleanly break off if done properly.

GLASS SCORING TIP OF THE DAY: You're only suppose to getone pass when scoring the glass,

and apparently not suppose to go over the same line twice. I did, and the

world didn't end.

The issue with the instructions is that my safety glass, unlike regular glass,

consists of two pieces of glass glued to a piece of plastic. The instructed

method of glass cutting would not work here.

The first step to solve this problem is a bit more obvious than the second

step. We must score the glass at the exact same spot on both sides so both

panes of glass will break at the same spot. I made this easy by clamping my

level across the glass and using it as a guide for the tool, then repeating the

process on the other side.


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Using a mixture of the ball and a bit of the drop method I could clearly see

that the glass was perfectly broken on both sides. But now the the plastic in

the glass was preventing it from separating and the break in the glass is so

thin that a piece of hair couldn't fit between. What the hell do I do now?

The not so obvious second step that I mentioned above was fire! (There is

also a special chemical you can buy that is designed for dissolving the plastic

membrane, but I jump at any chance I can to use fire!)

FUN FILLED FACTOID: A little bit of rubbing alcohol taken from ye ole

medicine cabinet works wonders for cleaning out cuts, but did you know that

it also works wonders separating pieces of safety glass? Yep! It melts right

through that plastic membrane like butter!

DEATH ALERT: I suggest sweeping up any piles of sawdust before

continuing. Also, if you die, I am sorry.

Lets continue, shall we?

Working one side at a time, pour the rubbing alcohol over the glass and set it

ablaze. This will start to melt the plastic membrane. Pull your glass to the

edge of your work area and let one half dangle off a bit so gravity helps with

the separation, but watch out for the fire, it will burn you up if you allow it to.Also, don't let gravity get the best of you: make sure you hold the piece of

glass dangling over the edge!

Flip the glass over and do the same thing again, but this time be careful

because it will separate on you, and having a decent size piece of flaming

glass come apart in your hands can be intimidating at best.


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Repeat the whole process for the width (or length, depending on what you

cut first,) and you should end up with the piece of glass that you need.

TIME SAVING TIP: Skip this entire section and go out and get a piece of

glass cut for like seven dollars.

Installing the glass

So the next step here is to get this glass in place before I break it and have to

cut another piece.

What I did was cut a few small pieces of scrap plywood to create makeshift

mounts to keep the glass in place until adhesive cured; although, the

temporary piece holding the glass will probably be left in, since they don't

bother me at all, and seem to be giving the glass much more support than

adhesive alone.


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Here is a view from the other side:

Test fitNow would probably be a good idea to see if the DR frame fits, because if it

didn't fit now, I would chainsaw this thing to death. Needless to say,

everything is 400 times better than what I would have expected.


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Looks good! Everything (important at least) seems to fit.

Catastrophe! Not really though...

When I came back to the garage to start on the door I noticed a crack in my

glass! Guess I tightened the mount up a bit too much and it cracked when I

walked away... Oh well, good thing its safety glass I guess...


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The door is probably the most "complex" part of this whole build since it

includes parts other than wood.

This is what I used for my door, all of it came from The Home Depot:

1. Piano hinge (one long hinge)

2. "Surface mount" latches

3. Silicone gasket (was the only gasket material that said it was rated to seal

out smoke)

The dimensions for the door are simple. Stand on the side of your cabinet,

whichever side you cut the entry on, and measure the outside perimeter.

Make that cut, and you have yourself a door. If everything works well, it

should look like this:


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Now we need to get the hinge on this thing. I attached my hinge to the inside

of the door like so:

The next part would have been much easier with two people but I didn't have

any help at the time so don't be discouraged if you don't have anyone to help

either!

Now the door must be mounted to the cabinet. The other part of the hinge

will be mounted to the back wall.

Once mounted, the door should open and close freely. If it doesn't, you

screwed up.


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Latches

Let me first start off by saying that I plan on using a better method of

latching my door, but I couldn't think of anything else at the time.

What I used were "surface mount" latches. These were the only latches I

could find that allowed my door to latch closed properly, although I really

didn't look very hard. The satin nickel finish really classes everything up...

My current door design along with my current latching system didn't work out


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of the box... Like I said in the beginning, I just build I as go. A simple

modification (scrap wood) allowed my latches to latch.

Here is the bottom latch. I plan on adding one more in between the two... Or

just re-do the entire latch system itself...

The gloves

Now the fun part! Its time to cut out the holes where the gloves will go.

Instead of making my glove mounts out of PVC like a few people on the net, I


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just went ahead and purchased them from the same place I bought my

gloves. The gloves and the glove mounts were by far the most expensive

thing, but the quality really does makes up for it. The last thing most people

want to do is to blast their hands off.

Cutting out the holes was pretty straight forward, and there wasn't muchroom for error. I drew a line across the cabinet about 3 inches up from the

bottom of the base which gave me horizontal evenness across the cabinet for

my gloves. Then I just marked where I wanted them to go and cut away. It

came out just fine and feels pretty damn "ergonomic" to me...

Check the picture out in case you don't understand anything I am saying.

Don't feel bad, after re-reading it, I don't.

After cutting all 4 holes, the next step was to screw in the glove mounts that I

purchased. Needs no explanation, so I wont be explaining.


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After all 4 glove mounts were installed, I installed the gloves by slipping them

onto the mounts and tightening a clamp around them. The clamps came

included with the glove mount kits that I purchased from tptools.com.

Here we can see all of the gloves installed. This setup gives me fairly

comfortable access to pretty much every inch of the cabinet.

The (almost) finished project

So, we are finally at the end... It's not the best looking cabinet on the planet,

but it works . I still need to paint it and drill out my vents and port for my dust


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collector, but this should be enough to get you started. Also in the works is

redesigning the base for easier media collection because right now it just

piles up and has to be scooped or vacuumed out, which slows me down. Stay

tuned for updates on that.

P.S, You learn something new every day

In the process of finding media to blast, I came across something very

interesting. Turns out "Black Magnum" coal slag is produced right here in my

hometown! Who would have thought?


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The fine folks at US Minerals were kind enough to give me 200lbs of their

product for free, which, unfortunately to them worked out in my favor

because the "Coarse" media didn't work regardless which nozzle I used. I

ended up going back and payed for a couple of hundred pounds of "Fine"

media, which is working out very well.

I was kind of bummed that the prices seemed to be the exact same as

anywhere else. They were producing the stuff on the spot which seemed

neat, and the entire property, including the parking lot, was literally covered

in this stuff. It was everywhere. Oh well... It's still very convenient and cool

that its produced here...I guess.

Does it blend?, I mean, does it work?

I think it works pretty damn good for something thrown together by a guy like

myself...

Here are some examples including a short video of this baby in action. Oh,

and by the way, I am using an Eastwood 200lb pressure blaster for those who

are wondering.

Here is a before shot of what my DR350 handle bars look like...


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Here is a video of me, blasting the bars with "Fine" black magnum coal slag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9IPDYlkd0Ac

Here is what the bars look like when I finished. I'd say that we have ourselvesa working cabinet.

Suggested mods for your cabinet

1. Vacuum port @ top behind a baffle to get the dust out

2. Cut the bottom out of the table and put in a piece of expanded metal grate

3. Build a wood tapered funnel that collects the blast media at a cone bottom

4. Put the media suction tube in the base of the cone. No shovelling,

automatically recirculates the media until it is used up. Can put a piece of

window screen just above the suction to filter out the tube plugger chunks.

5. Install a slide dump gate @ the bottom of the cone (an aluminum 4 shop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9IPDYlkd0Achttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9IPDYlkd0Ac


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vacuum gate works great) to empty spent media. 5 gallon bucket below,

open the gate, viola! got rid of the bad stuff.

Harbor Freight sells the gloves cheap. Just search fro the blast cabinet,

download the operating manual and order the gloves and mounts from the

replacement parts list.

Ive recently added a vacuum port and redesigned the bottom of the cabinet

to drain into a bucket. I will update the blog to show it in action. Im happy

with the results and its a lot easier to work with

If you line the cabinet with rubber roofing membrane it will last alot longer.

Although it will be dark inside since the rubber is usually black. Great article

and idea. You presented it very well.

how to build a sandblasting cabinet

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