Soda blasting

What kind and where to get some?

From the threads that I read here, it is common baking soda.

I tried that, no workie.
Steve

swest wrote: I tried that, no workie.
Steve

What do you mean by doesn't work? Not feeding into your blaster or just not aggressive enough? Soda is good for removing light oxidation/corrosion from aluminum but if you want to do more than that, you need to switch media IMHO.

Cory

I had my barrels and head/cover blasted with ice and it came up just peachy.

Harbor Freight sells soda blast media in 50 lb. bags. I used the general purpose grade to blast the cylinder head on my 750 and it worked perfectly. You need a lot of blast pressure to do a good job, and blasting outside in a total loss environment is MESSY. Good thing is a water hose cleans up the area nicely, and the soda didn't seem to harm my grass any.

If blasting something like a cylinder head it's important to plug up all the various oil passages to keep the grit out. Soda dissolves with water so a little leakage isn't a crisis, but be very careful blasting where media can become entrapped.

Got it, thanks.
Steve

Try a bakery/food supply place to see if you can get it any cheaper if youre blasting a lot of stuff.I mix it with glass beads for cleaning rusty sheetmetal parts.

Does standard sand blasting equipment work?

toolmaker wrote: Does standard sand blasting equipment work?

Standard equipment should be okay. I have a blast cabinet but the soda made too much dust inside - couldn't see anything. Dumped the media and then used a total loss elcheapo Harbor Freight gun. Yeah, cheesy. But it worked perfectly. Really well actually. I was surprised.

Ive got a regular pressurized tank that you fill with soda for blasting,i had to drill out the nozzle just a little so it wouldn't clog when I mixed the soda with glass beads or that black blast stuff.
If you soda blast something you want to paint make sure to wipe it down good with thinner first to neutralize the soda.

I bought a small sand blasting tank from Harbor freight for $99 and for another $25 was a soda blaster adapter. works good. I need to make a blast cabinet.