Modifications to my blasting rig

I have finally got myself a second compressor at a bargain price, whoooo! …although I later found that it had a cracked air manifold with a bodged repair, boooo! …thankfully it was very cheap to replace the whole damaged piece. Anyway, after lots of head scratching I linked them up to each other as shown in the photo below:

With both compressors running in tandem I can pretty much blast constantly without ever dropping below 100psi. The only thing to be considered is the duty cycle of the compressors, particularly as they heat up quick! So far I have been blasting for about 10mins and then take a break (well, finding something else to do) for 10mins to allow the compressors to cool down. It is a huge improvement, but blasting is still a slow process with a relatively humble set-up such as this!

To take care of the dust cloud issue, which fills the cabinet within 5mins of blasting, I initially attached a domestic vacuum cleaner to the outlet. However, it proved to be far too powerful for this cabinet and almost sucked the rubber gloves off of the mountings! So, after some playing I devised a rudimentary solution using an old 12V pump (the camping type, typically used to inflate air beds) connected to the inlet hole. The idea being that the pump creates higher air pressure inside the cabinet and as physics tells us, the air will move (along with the dust) to an area of lower pressure, via the filtered outlet in this case. 

It may appear to be too small to make any noticeable improvement, but I found that it significantly speeds up the rate that the dust clears. On the outside of the filtered outlet I have added a cardboard tube with one end cut at an angle. This is end is placed directly over the outlet hole with the other end faces out of the garage window behind the cabinet. In other words it is a cardboard exhaust pipe and it makes a huge difference in preventing the extracted dust from accumulating in the garage.

 

At the moment everything is held in place with copious amounts of gaffer tape and although it would be great to fabricate something more permanent, I really just want to get blasting, so sod it - I am going to leave it rough and ready!

Chassis paint has arrived! (Mastic 121)

Just received the hard-as-nails paint that I will be using to coat the chassis and various other components:

 

Mastic 121 is a two pack Epoxy paint and is highly recommended amongst restorers (believe me, I did a LOT of internet research before choosing my paint system!). Additionally I purchased some FE-123 Molecular Rust Converter, so that I can thwart any sneaky rust areas that I cannot reach with a wire wheel before applying the top coat. 

Most importantly is the correct mask; the epoxy paint is not too pleasant on the lungs if inhaled. At the recommendation of Rustbuster (I phoned them directly to check this) I opted for the '3M 4251 Gas/Vapour and Particulate Respirator'.

Exciting times ahead....