A Sunny Side ?

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 9:38 pm

wsherrick wrote:
nortcan wrote:Greg, thanks for the infos, very good things to know before starting the job. I will make the job outside so won't re-use the media. Anyways, at $9.99 a 50 P. bag, I will get a couple more and if not used, just give them to my brothers in law. That will be the pay for the equipment
How are you doing with your nice small stove topped with an original finial? Hope to see the suite soon
The only thing I have ever sand blasted is locomotive tenders and railroad freight cars. I hated it, it severely affected my sinuses and my nose turned into a river. Sand is VERY bad for your lungs, please have the appropriate breathing apparatus to protect your self.

Sand blasting on locomotive parts should be A JOB. Thanks for the advices for safety and respirator gears. I did it!

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 9:42 pm

SteveZee wrote:Pierre, Just knock the rust off each part. The orange peel look is there to stay if it's in the casting so don'y worry about that. Rust off, seal with polish or paint and your good to reassemble. Remember the karate kid? Rust on, Rust off.... or Rust off, polish/paint on.......

Steve, when I talked about the "orange peel" I was wondering if the sand would go deeply in it and clean it.
I remembered Karate Kid and made a lot of "Martial Arts" today

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 9:43 pm

wsherrick wrote:...... Sand is VERY bad for your lungs, please have the appropriate breathing apparatus to protect your self.

You've got that right! Every spring I used to be enveloped in clouds of it from the crappy streets of Worcester while out on my route. All that sand they dumped over the winter gets pulverized into a flour-like powder .. and between the motion of the truck, the traffic, the exhaust blasting on the ground, and the air brakes popping off, I was in a cloud of it all day .. AND I have asthma. My lungs would burn for months after that. Not a good feeling at all ....

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 9:44 pm

LsFarm wrote:A real-true sandblasting outfit is a sealed hood with a separate air supply. Like an astronaut hood with flexible air supply hose.
When I was doing a lot of sandblasting on an antique car frame, I hooked up a snorkle to EXHALE through, so the moist, warm air I was exhaling
went outside the hood, this just about eliminated the fogging on the inside of the hood's window.
I'd inhale through my nose, the hood had a filtered intake, and exhale through the snorkle. A bit awkward, but it worked, and I could see
what I was doing.

For smaller pieces, a sandblasting cabinet is wonderful.. keeps the dust, sand, dirt all inside the cabinet. You still have a hard time seeing the
object you are sandblasting, because of the sand and dust inside the cabinet. but you can get the job done.

If your sandblaster is a suction feed, then it is like a paint spray gun, the air pulls the sand from the supply of sand, often if the sand is damp, or
contaminated with dirt or flakes of rust because it was reused sand swept up and put back in the sand resevoir, the suction feed gets clogged.. it's
a real pain in the butt at times to clean out the clogged sand. Sometimes just putting a [gloved] finger over the nozzle of the hose will cause the air to
reverse and 'burp' the sand supply, and dislodge the clog. Sometimes you have to dump the sand and remove the clogging pieces.

ALWAYS pour the new or reused sand through a piece of window screen to catch the rust flakes, and other contaminants that will clog the
sand resevoir outlet port.. This is experience talking !! A small piece of paper from the bags that the sand comes in can cause a
LOT of headaches !!

A pressure pot blaster has a sealed sand resevoir, with air pressure forcing the sand out of the resevoir, mixing it with the high pressure, high velocity
air in the blaster hose. As I mentioned before, getting the right mix of air pressure in the sand resevoir, and air pressure in the air/blaster hose and
nozzle is a bit tricky. A lot of trial and error is to be expected..

And to add to the 'trial and error', as the compressor gets 'behind' the demand for compressed air, the air supply volume and pressure drops, so your
'perfect mix' of sand and air changes..
And, when you compress moist air, the water tends to separate out, so you need to have a good water separator on the outlet of the air compressor, and
keep the compressor's air tank drained, so it doesn't collect water..
Water in the air supply causes air tools, sand blasters and painters all kinds of problems..

Greg L

Thanks Greg, all that helped me today on the sand blasting job.

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 9:58 pm

This morning I was going to the farm just to make some testings on the sand blasting material and see how it works. In fact I came back home after about a 6 Hrs of ""practice"".
I was very happy to have read all the good comments about sand blasting here on the forum. That saved me many errors.
I did about 3/4 of the total job of sand blasting. I made a few parts then stopped sand b. (helped the compressor to recover) then applied a first coat of paint. I used a H.T. paint having a rust protection in. After I started again the process and again... But I forgot the "Kodack" at the farm.
All a job but I in fact I liked to see the rusted parts coming back just like they were in 1874, with a nice gray color, seems like a miracle

By a chance, my brothers in law had a 45G of sand and when a left, it was empty.

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Aug. 14, 2012 10:03 pm

SMITTY wrote:
wsherrick wrote:...... Sand is VERY bad for your lungs, please have the appropriate breathing apparatus to protect your self.
You've got that right! Every spring I used to be enveloped in clouds of it from the crappy streets of Worcester while out on my route. All that sand they dumped over the winter gets pulverized into a flour-like powder .. and between the motion of the truck, the traffic, the exhaust blasting on the ground, and the air brakes popping off, I was in a cloud of it all day .. AND I have asthma. My lungs would burn for months after that. Not a good feeling at all ....

And sand blasting job is one needing very good respirator protectors. Not the best job when having asthma problems.
Plus the sand on the roads is also a problem on the front end of the cars

SteveZee · Post by **SteveZee** » Wed. Aug. 15, 2012 7:52 am

Sounds like it went very well Pierre. Do you think the orange peel is gone now? If it wasn't too deep maybe so? It really does make a big difference when preparing cast iron for a coating.

I was painting some chairs yesterday (I call it "pain'ing)

when Kim asks what I'm doing. It was a very dark green like my porch floor. Actually the same paint. The color I was covering was an 80's grass green.

It took me 3 coats per chair to finally cover that old green color

. But, I much prefer to paint those than to let her loose with the checkbook looking for chairs!

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Wed. Aug. 15, 2012 8:30 am

Steve, no the orange peel stayed on but the sand removed about all the deep rust and as soon as I got a few parts done, I painted (spray can) them so the rust doesn't come back too fast

I am a"little" parano about- paint over rust...- you know what I mean...

Hope you have good rest on you chairs in the nice porch

Dann757 · Post by **Dann757** » Wed. Aug. 15, 2012 8:48 am

Hello Nortcan,
I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say we appreciate hearing from our Canadian coal friend! I was near Ottawa when I was a kid, camping at a lake called Christie Lake. I learned how to dive there one summer, it was as beautiful clear lake with a lot of steep cliffs on the side.

I had a home made sandblasting cabinet once. I made it out of hollow doors, an old window, and a fan to exhaust the dust. ( The fan exhausted to the air and would put out a cloud of dust!) I cut holes in the front and made working gloves for it by duct taping rubber gloves to pants legs and taping them to holes in the front of the cabinet

I put a wire mesh shelf in it and the bottom was made v shaped to catch all the used media for re-use.
I have a cheap sand blasting tank which has a stiff rubber hose with a ball-valve and changeable ceramic nozzles. My old compressor had to work hard to keep up with the CFM. I used to compensate by running it at 60 psi. I used to filter child-play sand through window screen over a plastic funnel to fill the tank! It always had bits of seashells in it that would plug the nozzle

I hear a lot of people use alternative media, such as walnut shells, and even baking soda (calcuim carbonate).

I also have a sand-blasting attachment for my power-washer, I did a boat trailer with it once, it left a huge circle of wet sand and paint chips in the back yard; but it did work!

Good luck!

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Wed. Aug. 15, 2012 9:34 pm

Dan 757, thanks for the good words. I consider myself lucky to be on the forum with all of you

So much to learn here

If you learned to drive in Ontario/Canada, you are certainly a very good driver

Your S.blasting system seems very ingenious

. As you will see on the photos, the S.blasting machine I used was also an home made one( from a brother in law) and also having a big and heavy rubber hose...

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Wed. Aug. 15, 2012 9:52 pm

Day 2 of sand blasting.
Had to stop and enter every things inside the garage 3 times cause of the rain. But I could finish the sand blasting around 6 P.M. Also had troubles to see correctly today, too much humidity or my respiration was too excited, but like somes already mentionned that, the job is a pain when you can't see what you do

Again I S.blasted a few parts then stoped and apply 2 H.T. stop-rust paint coats as soon as possible. Yesterday I let a couple of parts S.blasted but un-painted and this morning there were already some rusted spots on them

Now all is S.blasted and have 2 paint coats. I will wait a few days then will go for the final satin black coat.

SteveZee · Post by **SteveZee** » Thu. Aug. 16, 2012 10:58 am

Great job Pierre! Just don't use that glue in the 5th picture to put it back together!

buck24 · Post by **buck24** » Thu. Aug. 16, 2012 1:21 pm

nortcan...... Looks like you are doing a nice job on the Sunny Side. Just don't forget about Rope Gasket

We all know how much you love it. The clock is ticking so lets get on that stove doubletime and get her done before that cold weather rolls around. I can't wait to see her fired up this season.

LsFarm · Post by **LsFarm** » Thu. Aug. 16, 2012 1:42 pm

Yep, that's a pressure pot blaster, they will do a good job, once set up and adjusted. Your rust-removal job looks very good,

That sure is a complicated stove.. it must have 2x or 3x as many parts as your 'Bride'.

I am really currious how well that 'rocking grate' will work !

Greg L

samhill · Post by **samhill** » Thu. Aug. 16, 2012 1:54 pm

Good looking job Nortcan, even as everyone could give you some tips it's really one of those trail & error type things. A little bit of rust on cast shouldn't be any problem, as soon as some cast parts cool they seem to have a bit of rust & are shipped like that.

A Sunny Side ?

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