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I have a largish portable compressor. 2 hp, 20 gal tank. I have some restoration jobs that I thought a sandblaster cabinet would be the right tool for, so I built one a couple of years ago. I used a cheap siphon sandblaster gun for the cabinet and even with the small compressor (for sandblasting purposes) I find it works well, overall. Its not the fastest way to remove paint or rust (instead of removing paint from scratch, I now use a chemical stripper to get as much off as possible, and for rust I use either a wire wheel or, preferably, one of those scotch brite equivalent to a wire wheel in an angle grinder and then use the SB to get into areas I can't get with the wire wheel and any left over paint the stripper leaves, and it makes quick work of abrading the surface to prep metal for priming and painting), and to help with matters, I do use the most aggressive media I can get locally (HF's aluminum oxide). My compressor cannot keep up when I am continuously blasting, but when I rest (depending on what I am blasting, I may have to shift the piece to blast areas I can't get to when its in the position I had been blasting it in, because I made the funnel a bit too shallow, I also have to stop and re-position the pickup tube into an area with more media, or just sometimes I need to rest and let the compressor catch up some), my compressor does not take long to build pressure back up and shutdown. I am still learning about the nuances of the siphon blaster and figuring out modifications I am going to have to make to my cabinet at some point (i.e. so that I don't have to keep re-positioning the pickup tube), but overall, I am happy with how it works.
Also, you will want a filter between the compressor and the sandblaster. I mounted one on the side of the cabinet I built, even with that, I still get some drops of water through when I am blasting for a long time.
Paul
Paul
They were right, I SHOULDN'T have tried it at home!