Pressure Washer sandblasting kit

Wondering if anybody has tried putting glass bead through a pressure washer sandblasting kit? Seems like it might be a cheap alternative to vapor blasting.

No! You’ll end up with a mess! Glass bead contains silica, which is what makes deccicant. Moisture absorber packets. When I don’t touch my blast cabinet for long periods, beads clump up. 50# bags of glass media have a nice size bag of moisture absorber inside of them when purchased. I save those bags, they can be rejuvenated in an oven at 200 degrees for about 10-12 hours. I’ve been glass beading since 1985.

Hey all, the young guy working with me is investing in a vapor honing cabinet.He wants to keep it at my shop for know I said hell yes.He wants to practice on small parts I have laying around till he is confident on his quality, then He hopes to make $$$ he said the base unit he is looking at is near 2K but for 4K you get a beast of a cabinet.(z1kzonly I'm trying to PM ya, bradsaigacole@yahoo.com is email).

I tried to run fine aggregate through a cheap power washer when I was 20 something, and froze the thing in 10 min .hahahahaha that didn't work for me!

Setting up a vapour blast machine isn't as simple as just installing the blaster. You need a compressor to provide adequate air, and a decent dust collection system to keep the environment clean and healthy. (The main ingredient of the blast media is silica) I was attracted to this company and in particular to their micro hone. But unfortunately they don't ship to Canada.

vaporhoningtechnologies.com/

hardrockminer wrote: Setting up a vapour blast machine isn't as simple as just installing the blaster. You need a compressor to provide adequate air, and a decent dust collection system to keep the environment clean and healthy. (The main ingredient of the blast media is silica) I was attracted to this company and in particular to their micro hone. But unfortunately they don't ship to Canada.

vaporhoningtechnologies.com/

I was interested in their benchtop or even Ergo 750. Surprised to hear they don't ship to Canada.

Thats the company he is talking to.The unit will go inside my 2400+ sq ft shop with a 50 horse 3 phase converter with big air and room for a cabinet under the radiant heater.I plan on another shop addition next year for a small machine room, and this gif it grows.Cool possibilities anyways.

Kaylinator wrote:
I was interested in their benchtop or even Ergo 750. Surprised to hear they don't ship to Canada.

I went all the way to ordering a micro hone but when I went to the payment page it wouldn't accept my card. I haven't tried for a couple of years....should try again to see if it's changed.

Website only seems to allow for shipping to the US. I'm sure I've seen shops from the UK and Aus show off their machines on YouTube from this company, so I imagine you'd just have to contact them directly to make that happen.

I bought a Vapor Hone Technologies 800P last summer and it works well. I was going to buy the "Weekend Warrior" at first but the 800P had some options on it I felt were needed. I have done a few jobs for people, but I don't advertise much that I have the machine, with the current Covid situation. Vapor blasting isn't an easy process by any stretch and I wish now I had bought the closed loop machine instead of the open loop. With the open loop machine you have to contend with emptying a catch bucket which is a pain. The more you use it the more often you have to empty the catch bucket. There is a learning phase to using this type of machine and depending on the media used, it can give you different finishes. The problem is that changing media is a hassle, so now I just stay with 170/325 glass beads. It results in a satin finish that is somewhat shiny. Some people want a finished product that isn't as shiny, but that means changing the content of the media by adding aluminum oxide which can create other issues. The glass beads are not good at taking off paint, plus if you do take off paint the chips fall into your media supply. I have done some engine pieces like blocks and heads and they can be difficult to get done if they have really deep recesses or cooling fins. It's not just "blow and go". I did add a Tacoma Blast Gun to my machine and it makes things easier and doesn't use near as much air supply to get the same results. All in all, if I had it to do over I would get the VHT Micro Hone to start with for about a grand, or their benchtop cabinet for about $2,500.00 and learn the ropes and go from there. In truth the small Micro Hone would be more than adequate for most of what I do. The 800P was overkill. Large flat items are difficult to get an even seamless finish on and you can mess them up if you aren't careful. The people at VHT were/are great to deal with and are very helpful. I have attached a couple of pics to show what the machine is capable of doing.
Remember too that you need a really good air compressor to make a machine this big work properly. The bigger the better as you don't want to starve the machine of air.

The brake drum was compliments of Mikaw....In truth I never expected that brake drum to turn out as nice as it did. I was quite surprised at the results.

Rick H.

I didn’t want to be the first to bring Rick H out of the closet, lol. But now that he has opened the door I can say that he did my carb bodies for the VM33’s I recently finished. Rick, I wanted to give you the credit but wasn’t sure you wanted to have your new hobby exposed to the light of this forum. He and I have helped each other a lot and stay in touch regularly. Rick is a solid guy I’d help any way I can. So I sent him the hub to practice on, picked the brain of a few other Vblast guys to get Rick in the ballpark. I let him experiment on the carb bodies. Believe me when he says it not a “blow and go” process. He tried hard to get the 33’s to look close to OEM.

Thanks Rick!

Edit. Drop that 650 hub on evilbay and get a few bucks for supplies.

I find it hard to justify a machine that big because I have a friend in Chilliwack, about 3 hours away that has two blasters plus a sand blaster for paint. I save stuff up and go down a couple of times a year to visit, and we both blast like hell until it's all done. But I realized during my zinc plating experiments that some blasting to clean up small stuff, like nuts and bolts would be extremely handy. The micro blaster seemed to fit my needs, along with my available space. And my compressor!

Thanks for the kudos Mikaw! I was just hoping to inform some members that buying a vapor blaster really isn't just buy the blaster and start making money if that's the goal. When I got mine I had two thoughts in my head. One was to do my stuff without shipping it off to Lord Knows Where and the second was to perhaps make a few bucks to help recoup my investment. It became clear to me after getting this machine that there is much more to this process than meets the eye. I ended up buying old carb bodies and receiving donated parts (LOL) to work on. I learned a lot PDQ and found out many things. A good (large) air supply is an absolute must including running big fat lines directly to the machine from the compressor. A good air regulator that is easily and quickly adjustable is another must have. I had a real long chat with the gentleman that owns/runs Tacoma products and he has been in the sand and vapor blat business for a very long time. He gave me lots of good information about doing things better and more efficiently. I also buy a lot of what I need for materials from the people that built my machine.

Almost anything that you run through a vapor blaster/hone will look much better, but the rub comes in when people want a very specific finish. You get those different finishes by changing media, air pressures and technique of manipulating the blast gun. The blast gun that I bought from Tacoma really helped obtain better finishes for me and was what I used on Mikaw's carbs. Carbs need to be properly and thoroughly cleaned after blasting while they are still wet as it is much easier then when they dry out. I tried mixing media contents, but it proved to be a problematic experience for me. It's not easy to change out 25 gallons of water and media to change to another media for a one time use and then switch back. Ideally a person in the business of vapor blasting should have a couple of machines with different media in them. I made an absolute mess in my garage the first time I changed media. Thank goodness the glass beads reflect light once dry and are easy to sweep up.

Well that's about all I can say for now. If anyone does decide to jump into a vapor blaster make sure you don't go overboard on the initial purchase and if you need any help just ask. Pic included so you know it really happened.

Rick H.