Which abrasive blasting cabinet do you use and would recommend.

[NeddyBear]

Recently I've upgraded to a 16 cfm ITM 3.0hp 328 litres a minute air compressor for the shed and would now like to get a abrasive blasting cabinet.
I've been looking online to see what's popular and ideally ones that don't need any modifications to use, so many seem not to work efficiently and need some modifications.
Better be a little more specific, one around the 250 - 300 litre and if possible around the $1,000 mark, big enough to take a 16'' x 6'' car rim.

 

[Skylarking]

It all depends on what sort of objects you want to sandblast as that will dictate the cabinet size. Also, how long the blasting job will take is dictated by the nozzle size you use which has impact on the needed compressor size.

From what I gather, small sandblasting jobs needs a compressor which can feed 20cfpm while bigger jobs need 40cfpm. Commercial places use huge sealed sandblasting rooms with the operator in a space suit holding a gun fed by a huge compressors pushing 100cfpm @ 100 psi.

Given you have an 18cfpm compressor, you’d be looking at small jobs (or big jobs that take forever). So what size of cabinet you ultimately buy is really dependant on how much space you want to dedicate to the task within your shed.

I‘d think the bigger the better...

 

[losh1971]

What Skylarking said. I do a bit of sandblasting and my new 320lph FAD compressor doesn't continuously feed enough air to keep my tank blaster going for more than five mins before having to wait 2min for it to get enough pressure (90psi min). I was told it would run my blaster but I'm not impressed. I was also told a bigger tank helps drive the blaster better but I think that might not be true, as my old 220L 50L tank kept up almost as much as my bigger unit does. IMO it's about maintaining 90-100psi and not the tank size that makes them work efficiently.

The one I bought gets sold to spray painters, according to the bloke who sells them and repairs them, and yet it won't keep up.

I'm probably going to plumb another unit into the lines on mine to help drive it, when I move my equipment to my new shed later this year.
Skylarking is right about the tip, a nice fine tip will use less air but give almost as good clean that a larger tip will. I don't know a lot about cabinets but on my tank I have to adjust the ballcocks because if it's open too much you end up using 4x as much air and abrasive. I find using less abrasive and less volume of air but at a higher pressure works best. If I was looking at a cabinet I would look for one that can have the air and abrasive feeds adjusted to maintain high pressure. Sandblasting is all about keeping up the pressure.

 

[NeddyBear]

Hi Losh, which cabinet d you have?

 

[losh1971]

Hi Losh, which cabinet d you have?

I have a tank one not a cabinet. I was talking about my experience with my tank type blaster and some of the things you might come up against, with a cabinet.