[TheForge] interesting project

Tue May 20 12:50:01 2003

I said sweep up and scrape up as much as possible and wash the rest down. we
do it quite often.  As for using nitrogen, only if you have about 100CFM or
more.  I have built somewhere in the neighborhood of about 700 soda blasting
systems, and plain old sandblasters won't work.  Soda has a high "shear
factor"  sand will easily pour and slide down hill, soda cakes together, and
forms steep cliffs, and will not flow through the system.  Also soda when
not proportioned correctly will "jam" in your hose  and I do mean jam, its
takes some time to clean a 15 foot hose.  Also DRY air is a must, any
moisture from "cold" air will cake the soda almost instantly because soda
wants to absorb moisture.  There isn't anything more fun that a 50# pressure
tank FULL of caked soda break out the hammer and wrenches and start taking
it apart.  We also manufacture water blasting systems, which use air/soda
along with a neutral PH water stream (acid PH would destroy the soda
instantly).  This does less damage to wood and soft substrates.  Also anyone
worried about the effects of an little extra soda, wash it down with some
vinegar or acetic acid.  (same thing just I purchase acetic acid in
concentrate and dilute it 1/4 oz to 5 gallons as a wash.

As for the soda, if you can buy it Cool, mind you its about 12.00 a bag, but
from an autobody shop that's selling it "at cost" I bet he charges 25.00 or
more.  I am often dismayed at sometimes the do-it yourself attitude, pay
some dude with the right equipment for 3 hours work and 50.00 and hour,
he'll burn about 2 bags of soda an hour, or go buy cheap equipment and 25.00
a bag soda and spend 10 hours at it burning the same 2 bags and hour.  Which
is more expensive?

Its kind of like blacksmithing if you didn't do it as a hobby or a living,
would you recommend someone go have a railing made or go buy all the
equipment and spend thousands learning just to make one railing???????

grumphh...........

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: "terry l. ridder" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] interesting project

> hello;
>
> this runs counter to what i have been told by two automobile body shops
> that specialize in depainting automobiles down to bare metal. their main
> comments were to use cool and dry compressed air and a larger nozzle
> then would be used for the typical abrasive media.
>
> as for cool dry air, we all ready have liquid nitrogen available. a
> small vaporizer would supply cool dry nitrogen at the correct pressure.
> nozzles are not really a problem either. the one automobile body shop is
> willing to sell us the coarse baking soda at his cost.
>
> their additional comments had more to do with a side-effect which they
> do not normally run into but have heard from others who use soda
> blasting to remove graffit. while baking soda is non-toxic and
> environmentally safe in large amounts it can change the ph balance of
> soil and ruin landscaping. (plants, lawn, etc). they suggested using a
> tarp to keep the baking soda out of the landscaped areas. i would assume
> that this applies to acidic soil. would be like vinegar and baking soda
> reaction. i am not sure if it would alter a basic soil.
>
> other than that they said common-sense safety practices are sufficient.
> (respirator, full face shield, hearing protection, warning signs, etc)
>
> On Tue, 20 May 2003, Paul Hewitt wrote:
>
> paul>
> paul> Ahh there is a problematic question, we purchase from distributors,
and they
> paul> ar epretty tight about only selling to people with the right
equipment, its
> paul> about 5000.00 or more for the right equipment because of the way
soda
> paul> "shears" it won't work in ordinary sand blasting equipment.
> paul>
> paul>
>
> --
> Terry L. Ridder ><>
> _______________________________________________
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> theforge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoaccess.com
> Login:  [email protected]
> password:  anvil
> ___________
>
>
>