Blast cabinet design

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:00 am

Good morning everyone. I finally designed my cabinet. I plan to make it 48" x 95" x 24". What do you guys think?

Sarah King · Post by **Sarah King** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 9:14 am

Felix,

That is a remarkable design - very carefully thought out. I'm wondering - is it for sand blasting or glue chipping or both? Maybe you could tell us more about how it works. Is it 95" long (almost 8 feet) or is that the height? Why so many lights? Please explain.

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:12 am

Just a quick comment....I've tried building a couple of interior blast cabinets over the years.

First..you need an air intake somewhere and an air exhaust somewhere else (Assuming you are sandblasting). Otherwise, you end up with too much dust in the cabinet to see what is going on. Then, you need an exhaust with a filter to keep the dust from going all over the shop and down your lungs.

Second...I'd suggest making the angle of the funnel at the bottom much, much steeper. I don't think your abrasive will fall through to the bucket. My Glass Passer booth has a spring loaded door underneath to catch the material until I open it to release it into the bucket.

Our commercial booth has two long rubber gloves for handling the blasting. You might want to look over the design of the commercial blast cabinets and copy the good parts you see there!

Gotta run. Hope this helps.
Mike Jackson

joe crumley · Post by **joe crumley** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:09 pm

Felix,

Just another hint or two.

It's surprising how large a vacuum it takes to remove sand dust in the cabinet. On my booth we have a duel air 7hp vac and it has a hard time keeping up. I think this is due to the amount of air going through the blast pot.

We are useing plexiglass for the viewing. It's amazing how long it will last without getting too fuzzy. It can be removed and buffed down. I would recommend you make an easy to slide in and out channel

The depth of 24" is a bit too shallow. 36" would do better.

Painting the interior of the cabinet will really help

Will send more photo's of our cabinet soon.

J

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:36 am

Thanks for your help everyone!

Joe, yes. I'm going to make it deeper (36"). I agree about the removable plexi. I'm going to get something like a Jeep bikini rail or a Gemini track. I was also considering those clips from cigarette / gas price signs. About the vacuum, I can't afford one yet. I'm going to install a cheap bathroom exhaust fan for now. I know it won't help much, but I can't do any better right now. I'll probably also use the cyclone bucket whachamacallit with my big shop vac.

Sarah, yes. The floodlights up top are to remove humidity. I'm (hopefully)going to be chiping in it. Too much huidity down here. Its 95" high. That's all that will fit in here. Real low ceilings. & I can't have it in the shop because I'm out of room.

Mike, I totally agree about the angle of the funnel. I'm probably going to make it steeper & make the door 54" instead of 60". I'm going to buy the gloves from TP toos. I think they're like 28 bucks or so. Also, I'm thinking about installing the brushes vertically, like Gene Golden's design. Thanks again to all!!!

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:53 am

http://www.glastar.com/catalog/sandblas ... Passer.cfm

Felix,
Check out this page and specs.
We had a GlassPasser at the old shop and it worked fine for glass. I tried to use it for wood signs, using plastic media, and it worked semi-okay. I took it to the metal shop and had the back extended to give me some more room, which helped.

Overall, the modified design worked, but we ran into some latent snags. The plastic media cut the redwood quickly, creating a sawdust storm in the box. The heavy duty dust remover and filter worked fine for glass, but couldn't keep up with the sawdust. I also ran hoses from our 125 CFM compressor through the little TIP pot. It worked fine, but the sharp cutting plastic media chewed up rubber hoses and even the interior components of the "hobby" pressure pot.

If you are planning on doing glass, I suggest adding a bank or two of flourescent lights all across the back of the cabinet to backlight the glass as you blast it.

Lastly, I don't know how much your time is worth, but you might check out the price of the GlassPasser unit. They've already solved most of the problems you are now trying to solve. I'd never try to build another one.

Mike Jackson

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:58 am

Also, you can't see them in the picture, but there are two track extensions, one on each side, with rollers to slide a large piece of glass through the working area. You can see the glass in the photo above protruding out each side and the top, allowing you to frost several directions on a really large panel. (I never did one that large) It had cushioned end panels that pressed against the glass to hold it down and keep excess dust from escaping. They worked fine for glass, but didn't work well for wood signs since the blasted areas of a piece of wood allowed dust and media to escape.

Mike

PS, we are all having to scroll across this post because your images are much, much wider than the requested 425-450 pixel max. Your top image is 1024 pixels wide.

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:11 am

Thanks for the info, Mike. Sorry About the big photo. I don't quite get the size/pixel/resolutuion thing.

Ok so if I go & buy a cabinet, what makes the glastar better than the ikon sign etch?

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:40 am

Felix,
The Internet simply uses the pixel size. You can have a 1" x 1" image at 1000 dpi or a 2" x 2" at 500 dpi, but you still have a 1000 x 1000 pixel image. You can right mouse click on (almost) any Internet image to view "properties" and it will tell you the exact dimension of the image. In Photoshop, you can adjust the size by going to Adjust>Image Size and then set the pixel dimensions to 450 (regardless of the resolution) and it will resize the image down to 450 pixels. Bingo...that is what is needed for Internet photos.

I don't know all the differences in the two. They may both be very similar so you'd have to decide. Unless you are doing glue chipping in this blast unit, I don't see any need for additional heat inside the box...just good light. Compressors and pressure pots work best with low humidity, but putting heat in the box won't help that issue. Personally, I wouldn't glue chip in the same box, mainly because you want to keep your recycled abrasive as clean and pure as possible. Silicon Carbide will last a long, long time if only blasting glass, but small pieces of stencil and clumps of abrasive or wood can clog your pot and hoses.

I mentioned GlassPasser because that is the one we bought a long time ago. Tip sells other blast cabinets, along with many other companies. I believe a lot of the glass artists like the GlassPasser. We have a much smaller unit here in our garage/shop, but I hardly ever do anything much larger than 24". Noel Weber bought an old semi trailer and converted it into a black "cabinet". At the time, he was doing some really large panels, but he told me the ONLY blast glass in it.

Mike Jackson

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:51 am

Thanks Mike!

Dan Seese · Post by **Dan Seese** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:08 pm

Felix,
What do you hope to blast in your cabinet?
I bought a GlassPasser (the one Mike displayed here) a few years back and it has been a great investment for me. I have limited space so a small unit like this works well for most of what I do. I've been able to blast pieces as large as 4' x 12' or 6' x 7'. It's kind of a hassle and you have to slide them in and out but because it opens on 3 sides it's possible. You just can't do an entire piece at one time. There have been times when I've needed to be able to work on an entire piece at one time - doing a shaded etching of a scene - and I had to set up a temporary booth. But if you don't have the space or the need to set up a blasting booth, this little unit is fairly versatile.
I pretty much limit blasting in the cabinet to glass. I use silicon carbide which lasts a long time.
I have an area at the back of my property where I do my wood signs and HDU signs using sand and using a different pressure pot. That way I can keep the media in my GlassPasser unit cleaner.
I don't want to discourage you from building your own but do your research beforehand (which is exactly what you're doing here.)
I'm no engineer. I considered building my own but after hearing horror stories from others who had built their own I decided to let someone else do the engineer work and I would stick to the art work.
For what it's worth.

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:39 am

Thank you Dan. Thank you all!

I totally agree with you. But let me see what I do now. (I already bought almost everything I need to build one... the wife would probably kill me if I told her I'm not going to use the stuff!)

Robin Sharrard · Post by **Robin Sharrard** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 10:52 am

Felix. Get in touch with Butch at www.thesandwitch.com, she has some realy good information and can supply you with a realy nice set of plans or the hole kit for a realy nice do it your self blast cabnet. She also has all the info for an air cleaner that takes all the dust out of the cabnet or booth while you're blasting, more importantly, the motor she recommends is much more durible than most of the commercial units and will save you a lot of money and grief. I built my own blast cabnet from a set of drawings and pictures of Rick Glawson's cabnet. It was pretty easy to add the cut out slot and install some door sweeps that interlock into this slot which seals off the cabnet when I'm not passing larger pieces of glass through it. Has worked well for me for several years. Robin

Felix Marcano · Post by **Felix Marcano** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 11:02 am

Thanks Robin!

joe crumley · Post by **joe crumley** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 9:03 pm

Dan,

I really like my newly build sandblast booth.

We assembled it about a month ago and can't imagine having to go to outside to do the job. Here in Oklahoma it's just pure misery in the summer and winter. I'd try to gang the work but it allways seemed there was a stragler which needed to be done. Any way, it was a dirty, time consuming process that left me with a backache, and sand covering my body, no matter how good the gear. Now with a electric twin screw and a booth, the job is very fast and easy.

It's raining here now and I think I will do some sandblasting just because.

Our cost to have the metal 1" steel frame welded up was $400. We skinned the unit with white 1/4" PVC. It came together in a half day. I bought a "Hoola Skirt" to cover the 12" X10' opening where my hands go.
I'm not sure this is the best type of brush to use but it just came to me, so I did it. This is probably the weak link. My old Empire Pot has is a "Dead Man" cutoff, which I think is essential.

All in all, if a person has a couple of wood or HDU panels each month, a booth would pay for itself. Your first job will tell you so!

Joe
www.normansignco.com

Blast cabinet design

Blast cabinet design

Blast Cabinet Design