Vapor Blasting - How much?

[Tune-A-Fish]

Hoy hoy gang, exciting times for my humble outfit.

We have thrown in as a sponsor of this community, helping keep the lights on. If you hit the link in my signature you'll enjoy an exciting visit to my sponsor area which does include a bunch of example project galleries including some idea about what the stuff costs etc.

But for sure, be in touch directly anytime if you have any questions or want to talk about a project. Looking forward to working with you guys.

Best,

Nils Menten
RestoCycle LLC
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.restocycle.com
(520) 308-3705
info@restocycle.com

Looked through the site and when I get the box-O goodies back, it looks like I will just have to ship out an entire KZ1000













Or the torn down motor, brake systems front and back along with many bolt ons that will need the process to make it all come together... This will be a challenge, the bike is solid and ran but sat under a tree for about 5 years... Look close:

 

[NobleHops]

Well I look forward to working on that with you. I am restoring a 75 Z1-900 at the moment here, and so naturally I vapor blasted my engine as it was pretty manky-looking.












...but we can fix that!














At your service T-A-F!

 

[eoep]

Does anyone know if it's cheaper to go the hourly rate vs the per item rate?

 

[Tune-A-Fish]

Does anyone know if it's cheaper to go the hourly rate vs the per item rate?

Like anything you do, hourly, piece meal, buy parts and have someone do the work... it's the end result that matters. I think you will find price will be close regardless, service and consistency is worth more then a few dollars.

I put my parts in the mail on Monday and today they are on a UPS truck back to me... Likely not going to be the case every time, but if the work is as good as it looks, I will ship a bunch more.

 

[NobleHops]

Does anyone know if it's cheaper to go the hourly rate vs the per item rate?

I don't mind addressing that, and I hope I will stop short of saying 'my approach is better', because I frankly think it's 6 of one and half-dozen of the other in many cases. But in fact there are a lot of things customers can do to make my work faster - remove all the orings and seals, remove all the gaskets, degrease their parts, etc. And when parts come in like that, those customers save money. And it's not so much that I mind cleaning parts or scraping gaskets, but it's not always the best use for your money .

That said, I doubt I am the cheapest outfit you can find, and I am OK with that too .

 

[swan]

You get what you pay for.

 

[NobleHops]

OK, time for an update - we have been busy on a number of projects, having fun too.

Did a fun project for a customer with holed XR600 cases: He bought a used set of good cases, had them shipped directly to us and we vapor blasted them and sent them along to him. He was pretty psyched.







Helped a local customer with his cafe build - pulled his engine from his bike, soda blasted it, painted it, vapor blasted the valve and sidecovers, put it back in the bike. He was also pretty psyched







Have been dabbling in some automotive work - this is a throttle body and valve cover for a Miata that was dropped into a Sunbeam...





...and an intake for a Sunbeam (I think?)





These folks were (you guessed it!) PRETTY PSYCHED!

Met a very cool cat at a swap meet - an airhead guru. He sent me his transmission case in advance of a tech day he was hosting for a bunch of guys.








I confess I have fallen into deep like with American aluminum, as used by Harley Davidson. We masked these cases to preserve the Glyptal and blasted them on their exterior:





And nobody doesn't love a Honda CBX. By 1979 Honda was using some really nice quality metal and it is very much on display after vapor blasting it spotless:









Shall we have Italian? Tasty Moto Guzzi valve covers are on the menu:





Over on the other side of the shop, we are nearly finished with the restoration of another lovely little Honda CB400F:



...and we recently installed a vibratory polisher, aka a 'tumbling tank'. With this we can restore a smoother, shinier finish to sidecovers and wheel hubs and similar parts after vapor blasting that is much closer to the original finish. There's no charge for this service, at the customer's election.



Vapor blasted:



...and then tumbled:



And THAT is what's been going on lately at RestoCycle

 

[NobleHops]

Are you at the IMS show in Long Beach this weekend!? I'm here showing my wares with Ikon Suspension at booth 878. Come visit and say hi, and get yourself a big fat discount on a great pair of Ikon shocks or springs!

 

[xb33bsa]

beauty nothing like pristine cleaness as far as stored eneergy in compressed gas my idea 30 years ago was a windmill and a huge tank to store the built up energy like a propane outfits 40 ft long tank ,bury it tho, a ways from the shop,' case she blows
of course now it is being used, my idea, to store energy in comp gas in salt domes boom its just too simple not to be viable who needs batteries ? to store windfarm energy ?