Thread: sand blasting

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I have never done this and heard not to do it BUT WHY NOT Sand blast aluminum. I'm talking an intake manifold. If you do not blast any mateing surfaces what would it hurt? I bought one and somwhere along the line it was painted YELLOW.

Sand blasting will erode the surface an ojectionable amount. Get it media or bead blasted. Crushed walnut will give you the closest to as cast surface unless it was polished before it was painted.

I have sand blasted scores of aluminum parts with out ever having a problem blowing through. I use the black stuff from Menards, it's cheap, instead of silica sand because of the silicosis danger. I have used "exotic" ( read that expensive) materials too and my experience is that you will never need to worry about taking too much material off on an intake using regular blasting media if you don't dwell on one spot to long.

I have even tried to blast the lettering off intakes and found it is impossible to do with a small cabinet blaster.

So I would say go for it.

John

I've done a bunch of intakes and old aluminum wheels with my small sand blaster, works great. Unless you are using one of the huge commercial units, doubt there would be much of a problem.... On the agenda for next week is a new blast cabinet (spelled larger) for the body shop. Going to build this one large enough to do an entire rear end housing. Two sets of holes with gloves to be able to reach the entire housing and maybe even get some help flipping it over once in awhile....