Harbour fright Pressurized sand/bead blaster

Starting to bead blast my landing gear and assorted fittings getting
ready to pain and inspect closely.

Purchased a pressurized blaster from harbor freight. The 40lb kind.
dumped a box of #8 beads in and expected to blast off. Nope. Nada.
Seems glass bead is hygroscopic or hydrophylic take yer pick.
Compressed air in North Carolina is quite wet. Glass bead wet air = no
blasting.

Solution.
Take one bog standard portable air tank. Drill a hole in the side of
the thing or top does'nt matter. Weld a steel male to male bung onto
the side of it and then attach a ball valve or quick connect.
Remove air fitting that came with the tank. I was left with a 1/2"
threaded bung. Using a 1/2 steel pipe nipple and 90Deg fitting from
Lowes aerospace supply company I hung a Johnson Controls Filter
regulator on it. (also from lowes)

How the setup works.
1. Locate the compressor in a different location than where you are
blasting.
2. connect an airline fromt he compressor to the header tank/reg/filter.
This is important. The length of the line will help cool the air down.
This allows water to condensate out and get trapped in the header tank.
The longer the line the better the results (in theory) Im getting
good results with a 25 foot line.
3. feed the blaster from the header tank thru the filter/regulator.
4. Blast away.


Works well for me.
Sean Trost