Sandblaster - Finally sorted.

[crash]

A year or 2 ago I bought a small 30kg pressurised sandblaster like this one Clarke CPSB100 Pressurised Sandblaster - Machine Mart - Machine Mart (https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-cpsb100pressurised-sandblaster/)
They are rated for 6 to 19CFM. I hooked it up to my 13cfm compressor but things just were not working aswell as I thought they should be.
These blasters have a single air feed and that goes to a T piece with one part to pressurise the pot and a second part going to another T piece on the bottom that takes the blasting material to the gun.
First mod was to change the metering valve on the bottom to a gate valve and I also went up a size. The original T connector at the bottom was a bit of a bottle neck so went up a size - some people on the internet would drill these out to a bigger size. I just bought a larger T connector from an air compressor supply house.
These couple of simple modes improved things alot, but I was not fully satisfied.
I have been wanting to get another smaller portable air compressor for around the place so I ended up buying a cheap direct drive compressor rated at around 5cfm. I Connected this directly to the bottom T - piece of the blaster and had my big compressor feeding just the blaster itself. Things were working well, but felt i could improve things so I swapped the compressors around with the small one feeding just the pressure pot and the larger compressor running to the bottom - well it works a treat now.
I now have very few interruptions while blasting now. The tricky part is getting the bottom feed valve set correctly - can be a fine line between not enough and too much sand.
I ditched the ceramic nozzels it came with and bought a decent titanium one. Well worth the price.

[Homestar]

Even with more expensive ones they under do the air system - my mates big 2 station unit which cost over $15K was terrible straight from the factory. A full upgrade to all air line sizes, nozzles, regulators was required as well as air relays as they had the nozzle air running through the foot switch and both door switches. Now the foot switch and door switches interupt the air relay and a 3/4" line runs straight to the nozzle from the relay.

Thankfully he had a final payment to make after delivery and he refused to give it to them until all this work had been done. :). He finally got what he paid for, but I'd imagine there's plenty of other customers that didn't.

It cracks along now even with 2 people using it.

Good you got yours sorted. :)

[crash]

The last issue I have is the bottom of the container is too flat, and you can not run it until it is fully empty. The only way to resolve it is to cut it apart and put a funnel in it - but being a pressurised vessel I do not trust my welding skills. The top is too narrow to put any thing in from the top.
I just make sure it is full at the beginning.

[crash]

I was having some issues with too much sand and clogging my lines. Changed back to the original 3/8 ball valve at the bottom of the tank to regulate the sand flow. Last night did a complete tank without any clogs. Now just need to work out an air leak and happy days.