sand blasting

If you want to buy one tiptools.com sells one that fits in the top of their blasters. Any type sand can be used that will pass through the tip except salt water beach sand. You don't want the salt on your bare metal. Some will cut better than others. The mason sand varies in size depending on where you live. I blast over plywood so i can sweep it back up and use it again. If you buy a truck load you can spread thin layers on plywood to let the sun dry it out.

I switched to fresh air for comfort, but got safety as a bonus. I have a hobby blaster that holds about 40 lbs. of sand and puts out a small cloud of dust. Less than you would see on a windy day on a freshly plowed field.

I don't want to make light of safety with the dust issue. But i do want to point out that there are big differances in exposure between hobby blasters and commercial pots with many times more output. The lawsuits for illnesses were brought against commercial blastering companies. The standards for protection were changed after these lawsuits. Some of the commercial blasters are large enough for 2 and 4 men to blast at once. When you do this everyday for a living you have a heavy level of exposure that a mask may not protect against. Masks also need to be used properly and fit properly. The worst case would be blasting the inside of a tank or cargo hold where you are in an enclosed space. I don't know if the workers involved had protection or sued because they weren't provided with protection and became ill. Many times these are class action and workers who never had a symptom get paid because they were there and may have been exposed. The trickle down effect is that you may not be able to buy a mask that is rated for blasting because companies feel selling the mask isn't worth the risk of a lawsuit. It may well be that the masks you have looked at are the same masks that were rated for blasting but are now not marketed for that purpose. That is the point I'm making. The dust is a known safety hazard and you should use the best protection you can. Fresh air masks for commercial blasting requirements is one of the good things OSHA has done. Some of the other requirements they have are for things only a bonehead would do. We probably could not launch the Apollo 11 spacecraft today and go to the moon without equiping everyone watching with ear protection, a hardhat, safety goggles and a respirator because of the power of the largest rocket booster ever made. Someone may get a headache from exposure to all that power and noise. LOL :) OT: I'm a dinosaur who wishes we could get things done in america like we used to.

If you can get the product Rod recommended, that would be safer. If you use an air supplied respirator, that would be the best. Cartridge masks may be adequate and all you need, but can leak if not adjusted and fitted properly. So there's a bonehead factor with them if you can't tell sand is leaking around your mask and up your nose. They're not as failsafe as fresh air. If you use your own ingenuity on this project be as safe as you can.

I buy my sand for $40 a truckload. I forget how many yards that is, but it's a tandem axle dump. So I figure my cost is less than a penny a pound delivered. I also have the space to be able to do that and the safety equipment. I don't play in it anymore, but the kids do.

As with isocyanates, the best respiratory protection is a continuous flow, supplied air respirator. Even with a cartridge type, I think the main concern is with small particulates and not vapors. Therefore, the prefilters and face fit of the respirator may be more important than the cartridge itself. Here's a good read on the subject, along with some background and recommendations. Most of the industrial blasters that I have seen in the past 20 years do not use sand at all but rather a slag product that has a very low free silica content (<1%) to minimize potential exposure. That is consistent with NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety) recommendations to use an alternate material to silica sand. Black Beauty blast grit is one such alternative that I use. It costs about $8 per 50# bag and should be available at most auto supply stores that also provide painting supplies to local autobody shops.

Rod