May Have Gotten A Little Closer To Starting Up.

wes schaff

I called the guy with the pots,he can deliver them to NJ-Schewsbury.they seem to be a good deal ,I am thinking of buying one setup.Does anyone know if these will shoot soda?

plazaman

any pot will shoot soda, but only a pot desgined to shoot soda will shoot it efficiently. a regular pot will consume alot more media than a soda pot. you dont want that since soda is basically 1 of the most expensive blast media, besides grit and shot.

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MEDIA MAN

That is a good price as long as it is in working condition. Seems short on breathing hose (25ft) unless he uses ambient air pump. You probrably will want to bump tht up to 50 or 55ft. If it was me I would check into 1" blast hose and at minimum a 5/16 (#5) nozzle. What is the astris (*) behind the 3/4" blast hose?
Has he stated why he's selling these units? If they are in usable condition I am not sure you will find a better deal! Do you have to take all 5 to get that price or is he selling per unit? At worst you may need the plunger and plunger seal on pots. Just replaced the plunger seal on my 6.5 Schmidt this spring ($19), repair kit (seals) for combo and micro valves. Minimal charge. Seals kit on my Thompson valve was like $22.

gran_national

no, i don't believe I'll have to take all of them. His wife e-mailed and said he'll take $900 per unit. I was kicking around getting 2 because the price seemed so good, but I don't really have a lot of money to blow right now. The $900 for a complete, new, Schmidt system sounded REALLY good.

gran_national

wes schaff, we must've talked to a different person. I spoke with the lady whose husband is selling them and she told me they do not deliver.

wes schaff

I googled ur line came up on craigs list phone 770-594-1078,have the guy ship 2 i,ll take one.

gran_national

Wes, if I got one, I'd go get it. I would think shipping on an item like that would be outrageous! I guess paying to drive down there would be outrageous too, but I'd prefer to pick the best looking unit when I'm down there. Plus, the wife and I were looking at a weekend away so that'd kill 2 birds with one stone. Not very romantic, but it's alone time. Before I bring any back, I'd need the money up front. I don't want to get stuck with them. I'm in south central PA. I assume if I would bring one back for you, it'd be closer than you going to Atlanta? Keep me updated. If you're really interested, you can e-mail me at gran_national87@hotmail.com. I understand the hesitation on sending me money up front, so if you want to setup a cashier's check made out to that guy or whatever you feel comfortable with, that's fine, I'd just appreciate a little gas money to bring it back. Let me know. I will probably do this within the next week or 2. My brother is off work all this week and I thought about having him run down for me. It is a 10 hour trip.

MEDIA MAN

I can appreciate the little trip and wanting to see the pots for yourself. FYI in March I had a 6.5 schmidt pot shipped from MA to ND. Cost me $250. I did not think that was too bad for the price of Diesel. Came via carrier Conway. Distributor in Minneapolis to here wanted $500. Thats only about 1/3 the distance for twice as much.
Good luck on the purchase!

gran_national

The wife and I will probably be leaving Friday night to head down, spend the night and pick up 2 pots on Saturday morning. It's weird how things work out because last night I was talking to a buddy of mine and told him where I was going and what for. He said that his dad had tossed around the idea of getting into soda blasting. I don't think he will as I think it's something he just thought seemed cool. Anyway, his dad works as an executive at a retirement home and wanted something completely different. They hired some guy to come in and soda blast some pool fixtures and my buddy's dad got to talking to him. He did mention that the soda blaster "can't keep up with business" which is good if I want to get into soda. Sounds like there would be business around here. I'll try to post some pics if/when I get the system.

plazaman

which area is this? was the guy a 1 man operation?

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gran_national

He's in Roswell Georgia. I never really got the details of his setup. I'm leaving today around 1:00PM.

gran_national

Well guys, I did it. We got back Saturday evening around 9:00 from Georgia. The gentlemen seemed very knowledgable and even had one of his guys who does blasting there who answered some questions. He even threw in some new hoses for the hood still in the plastic and about 30 or so hood shields for free! I'll have to take some measurements and post some pictures, so you guys can tell me exactly what's what.

My mom had been considering having her deck pressure washed, but I thought about hitting it with walnut shells. What do you guys think? I guess I should take some pictures of that and post. I wanted something to get my feet wet with blasting, but to work with someone who would understand that I was just starting out. Like I told her, if it's going to cost $400 in materials alone, I'll probably skip it, but I did want to do something to make sure the pots work and are tweaked before going right into a job for someone and then looking like an idiot if something breaks or I don't know what I'm doing.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you guys for answering questions and helping me out. I guess I need to start advertising and get my feet wet. Where do you guys get your media from? I'm in the south central part of PA so if you guys know of any cheap distributors in the area, let me know. Thanks.

CO2Solutions

Congratulations, it's only just begun for you now. Are you excited? just starting is such an awesome feeling - nervous but exciting.
Good luck, have fun and keep posting...

gran_national

Oh man, I'm excited and very nervous! I was real with myself and determined the worst case scenario. I wanted to stay cheap, but still get nice equipment and there are usually deals here and there so I told myself I had to wait for one to come along. One did with this setup in GA and I jumped on it. Worst case is I don't get ANY calls to do ANY work and I can just turn around and sell all of the equipment on e-bay for the same or a little more than what I paid for it. My dad actually paid me to go get a second setup for him. He's thinking about just having me sell that on e-bay for him so I'd get an idea of what I could get for my stuff. If everything falls apart tomorrow, I've only put about $1000 (w/gas) into this setup.

MEDIA MAN

DiDo - Congrats! Find out when the next issue of the phone book comes out and get your ad in. Work will come your way. One time you mentioned you were concerned about your truck not handling it to a job. Let your customer know that it is cheaper for them to bring it to you. If they can't, charge them something for the convienence of having you come to them for the small jobs. Large jobs you can usually get paid enough to cover multiple trips if needed. Another solution is finding a car trailer and tell them you will pick the piece up if they can load it onto your trailer.
Again congratulations - if you need help on something post it. We're all here to help and learn.
As for that deck. Do tests on it with various media. I have used soda, crushd glass and cob on wood. I like crushed glass best, then soda and crushed corn cob the least. I have not used walnut on wood because I was told it is to agressive. But be aware they will raise the grain of the wood and will remove the bulk of the coating but not all of it in areas and you don't want to blast too long in one spot. Media blasting is always a better solution than power washing I feel because power washing will inject the wood with moisture. Something your customer is trying to avoid if they want to seal it right away. Especially on log and cedar sided homes. Many will power wash then seal it. All they have done is trapped moisture inside and will have big problems.
Good luck! Glad to hear your excited.

gran_national

MEDIA, I would be concerned with the media left behind with crushed glass. As a matter of fact, that's something I've always worried about with blasting with that type of media. What do you do? I think if someone left little tiny chunks of glass all over the place at my house, I'd be mad. Sand, not so much, but who wants sand all over their yard? I would imagine you'd need to blast a LOT to make it accumulate enough to see, but still, let me know.

MEDIA MAN

GRAN NATIONAL

The crushed glass I use on wood is almost a powder. It is 60-100 grit. These are not chuncks or large pieces. You can walk over it barefoot; rub it in your hands nothing will happen. Just don't get it in your eyes. As for clean up, just use a broom and sweep up the bulk of it and either haul it out or put it in a dumpster. What is on the grass area can just be raked into the grass. Clean up is rather simple. I blast large area's of sidewalks into school entrances. All I do is sweep up the majority into large bags and toss them into the dumpster. Then I use a gas powered leaf blower and blow the rest into the grass and off the building and shrubs.
As a rule in general when I blast I just tell the customer that it will leave a mess and are they ok with that. Usually they understand this and I let them deal with the clean up. You can always put out a large tarp and collect a good portion of it. For instance blasting the frame rails of a car. Do it over the tarp. What falls near will be larger pieces what travels farther will be like a dust.

On the deck you have posted pics of figure 2lbs media per square foot. This is probrably high because you will need to meter it down so you get less media flowing and turn down the compressors psi to about 60 or 70 psi. My compressor will not produce under 70 psi. You should get 300SqFt per hr or more. What will slow this project down is the lattice because of the angles but not major. Remember this, when blasting anything with angles or 4 sides even though small it will take longer because you either have to physically move yourself around to cover the angles or you have to man-handle the item itself to turn and get the angles. Stopping production time and dragging out the job. Unlike a flat surface that you can keep moving. Also I have found that frequent stops and starts will use more media. The initial push on start up will deliver a lot of media at once because upon stopping it all rests in the hose. And alway's do test areas before digging in full throttle so you know what you are dealig with especially on wood. Old rotten wood will blow apart.
Speaking of angles I'd better get going. I had a legend race care dropped off last night I sponsor a team of 3 drivers and they need a frame and fiberglass body blasted. The frame is all angles. Frame I will use 20-40 slag and body will be soda.
Wish you were closer I'd give you a bag of cob and a bag of crushed glass. I even saw a log home that was blasted with 40-60 slag. Turned out awesome.

website for glass
http://www.glassadvantageinc.com/