Hey guys - what are your feelings about soda blasting? I was reading some threads but a lot of the responses seemed to be about having someone soda blast. So I was wondering if you guys tried your hand at it in yourselves and how your experience with it was? Someone in my area is selling one of the little harbor freight ones for cheap but I don't know if I should bother with it or not. Is it effective for taking off paint and primer? I guess this one operates at 125psi max. Thanks for helping out a newb.
A guy I know was in the small airplane repainting business for a few years. He got a soda blaster and just loved it. Was telling me one time he did the whole bottom half of a Cessna 180 in 2.5 hours. It doesn't damage the aluminum and the fancy airplane paint comes of pretty quickly. Clean around all the rivets too, which are a pain to sand. I never saw him use it, but he really liked it.
Yes good stuff! you can even blast an assembled engine without any harm because the leftovers of the soda crystals are like powder and soluble. It is used a lot over here. best paintremover i can think of. Not the fastest nor cheapest though
Awesome! Well then I think I'll go grab it. Gas to and from should cost more than the blaster. Thanks guys!
Bear in mind that soda blasting is not intended for rust removal. It's for paint and coating removal, and is quite gentle on your old pot metal trim pieces when attempting to clean them up, too. Roger
FWIW I devised a little home made soda blaster using a siphon hose & a box of Arm & Hammer. Did an old junk lawn mower carb just for kicks. I was amazed how well it worked.
I did the same last year with a ford 2 barrel carb. 45 year old carb looked new in 10 minutes. Great for delicate work.
The Jalopy Journal
