Can anyone make a recommendation of what I should put in my blast cabinet to clean my head prior to powdercoating? I normally run glass beads in it because it cleans up aluminum without taking anything off, but I read that if you get in parts where oil flows the fractured beads can get embedded and not release until the motor heats up for the first time.
Abrasive for prepping head for powder
- Thread starter tshrey
- Start date
I used soda on the 360, all engine parts. Nice because it dissolves with hot water but it easily caked up in threads, oil passages, etc.
I went with glass on the XL. same deal, fully disassembled. I highly doubt that anything would be embedded in the aluminum or magnesium in this application. As with any media blasting, you have to clean the absolute bejeezus out of it before you reassemble. It's pretty easy to tell when you slide a valve in and you haven't done a good job cleaning...
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I went with glass on the XL. same deal, fully disassembled. I highly doubt that anything would be embedded in the aluminum or magnesium in this application. As with any media blasting, you have to clean the absolute bejeezus out of it before you reassemble. It's pretty easy to tell when you slide a valve in and you haven't done a good job cleaning...
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As a trial I did the piston jugs. Taped the flat side opening off as well as the opening on the other side for the cam chain. No way the glass would get embedded in the piston sleeves. Came out nice, tape kept all the internal engine parts clean. The crusty white corrosion is that gets all over the fins after 40 years is a real bitch to get off, had to pull the part out a few times and really inspect it to see if it was clean. Way too complicated to try to tape off the head openings, so today I'm changing my blast cabinet over to soda. Will be really refreshing to work in the cabinet and not have to be careful with where I put the nozzle. After all this work I think I may make myself a new cabinet that has more room in it, put multiple vacuum outlets in there, one with a filter for normal media and one without for when running soda.
So I was too lazy to switch the cabinet over. Did a ghetto fabulous makeshift soda blaster out of a length of vinyl tubing and my air gun. At first I was shooting so much soda you couldn't see, so I pushed a bolt into the tubing to restrict the soda flow. It worked incredibly well. I did my whole head in about 20 minutes and only used a couple pounds of soda.
I'm going to cut a threaded nozzle with a soda inlet out of aluminum tonight to thread on to my air gun. The biggest problem I found was water in the air line, my separator drops the air flow a ton if I use it, so I kept having to clean out the wet chunks of soda from the hose. I'm hoping my aluminum venturi will be much more efficient and I don't need so much air flow, that will let me reinstall the water separator.
I'm going to cut a threaded nozzle with a soda inlet out of aluminum tonight to thread on to my air gun. The biggest problem I found was water in the air line, my separator drops the air flow a ton if I use it, so I kept having to clean out the wet chunks of soda from the hose. I'm hoping my aluminum venturi will be much more efficient and I don't need so much air flow, that will let me reinstall the water separator.