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The $400 sandblaster that turned into a pile of junk after 3 jobs
Bought a cheap sandblaster from Harbor Freight for $400 thinking I'd save money doing my own blasting on a 67 Mustang fender. Worked fine for the first hood and one door panel. Third job it clogged so bad the nozzle cracked and the siphon tube fell apart. Spent more time unclogging than blasting. Total waste. Should have just paid a shop $300 to do it all. Anyone else get burned by cheap blasting gear?
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paige_martin2mo ago
Three problems with cheap blasting gear a lot of people miss. First, those budget units almost never have an inline moisture trap worth a darn, so water builds up in the line and turns your media into a cement mixer. Second, the replacement parts are often made of recycled pot metal that cracks under pressure, which is exactly what happened with your nozzle. Third, the siphon tube setups on those Harbor Freight units are notoriously weak and will collapse under heavy use. You would have been better off renting a commercial unit for the day and buying a $100 moisture separator to put between the compressor and the gun.
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lewis.drew2mo ago
Read somewhere that even the cheap compressors can be the real problem if they're undersized for the siphon setup. Good breakdown though @paige_martin, never even thought about the siphon tube itself collapsing.
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