Monday, September 16, 2013

Soda Blasting and Cleaning

Now this is an area that I have had mixed luck with in the past. I have a hand held blaster with a top feed bin on it for aluminum oxide and glass beads. Most restorations I have seen used bead blasting to clean up the aluminum parts. The first BSA I restored was cleaned in this manner. I did not like the rough finish it left and I found it hard to keep clean. I wanted to keep the casting glaze on the aluminum so I decided to try something different. Soda blasting seemed to be the next logical step.

I put soda through my hand held unit and it worked alright, but plugged up quite a bit. The carburetors were done with this blaster. I also went through a lot of soda-blast media, which had been purchased from Harbor Freight. A friend of mine had a soda blasting unit which he loaned to me after I explained the issues I was having to him. It was a unit with no cabinet. It worked very well and I would not hesitate to use it again if I had a better place to operate it. Air pressure makes a significant difference in how well it cleans and if the work piece surface is abraded. I also found soda blasting could be used to clean up chrome. I did not do much experimentation with this, but I will in the future.

One thing I learned with soda blasting is that it kills grass and everything green it touches. I had a construction project going on in my back yard with plans to replant it so I was not too worried. With my new yard in place I no longer have a place to use this media. I will hire this out next time or try doing it in an enclosed cabinet.  Since the time I soda blasted my parts I have read about ultra-sonic cleaning. I will study this more to understand its pros & cons.  I have also purchased some walnut shell blasting media to try. Low pressure glass beading may also be a good method. More to follow.


Before and after pictures of the Monoblocs.  


The casting glaze remained if I did not set the air pressure to high. It did not clean as well as bead blasting.   



6 comments:

  1. It's incredible that you can get all that dirt and grime of through soda blasting. That's so cool. Does it ever take away part of the metal while you are blasting? I just wondered how you got the dirt and grime of without ruining the metal. http://www.northwestpowdersolutions.com

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    1. Hi Tom & thanks for the comments. I cleaned the parts up pretty well before soda blasting. I used engine de-greaser & kerosene for most things and gas for stubborn parts. The final clean was done with the soda blasting. If I turned up the pressure soda blasting would start taking away some of the aluminum. I kept the pressure low so it did not change the look of the cases as I wanted them to maintain their original casting glaze. It worked really well for getting off the gunk nothing else would....old gasket material, hard grease, carb varnish, silocone sealer, etc.

      Randall

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  2. My husband also noticed that when he was using soda blasting for automobile restoration in our backyard that it was killing the grass around it. The before and after pictures of your monoblocs are absolutely amazing! Thanks for sharing your project and your experience using soda blasting.

    Jessie | http://www.northwestpowdersolutions.com/puget-sound-wa-sand-blasting-process.htm

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    1. Thanks for the comments Jessie. Fortunately I was doing a home modification project and was planning to replant my grass anyway. The amount of lawn kill was very surprising to me....it took out everything! I am not sure where I will blast next time, maybe in a cabinet although I hear this does not work well.

      Randall

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  3. I bought a home as a fixer upper. I am noticing a lot of the house plumbing has rusted pipes. Can disassembled the sink pipes and take them somewhere to get sandblasted? Hopefully, something like that will only take a few hours at most.

    http://www.absoluteblast.com.au

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  4. Hi Bryan. I am not sure about blasting pipes as we usually just replace them here in the US...a throw away society I guess. The only thing I know about Australian plumbing is that the water spins the opposite direction in your toilets than in ours, although I learned this from the "Simpsons". It is a highly regarded source of information in the US but not to scientific ; ). Thanks for the comments Bryan!

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