Bead Blaster

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 11:17 am

I?m considering getting a bead blaster to use to remove the old paint from Kaholee?s interior. Here a list of questions I have. If there is anything that would be useful to know which I did not cover, please feel free to add it or any comments or thoughts you might have.

1. How good a job do you think it did?

2. Which units (manufacturers) do you like?

3. I understand you need a breathing unit and some kind of bunny suit when using bead blasters, any suggestions here?

4. Any suggestions about the compressor?

5. What about the bead compound?

6. Safety concerns?

As you can tell, I have no clue about these things, but I understand they do an excellent job and work very well when removing paint from raw fiberglass (exposed mat with all those little pockets between the strands of the mat)

Thanks for the assist,

Shark · Post by **Shark** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:49 pm

I don't speak from any personal experience but I read in Classic Boat magazine that the editor used a low pressure sand blasting techinque to remove the paint from the interior of a 1930's wooden sloop. It worked but the clean up of debris and sand from all the seams, joints and crevices was extremely difficult. Even a shopvac wouldn't do the job. He admitted he might have been better off just scrapping.

Just a thought. You may want to consider the difficulty of "cleaning up" afterwords when choosing your blasting medium

Lyman

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:49 pm

Lyman,

I had considered that clean up might be a bit of a chore. The big problem with grinding the paint on the interior of Kaholee is that the glass mat makes it impossible to get the paint down between the mat strands with out fairly excessive grinding. I thought the sand blast method might get this paint without excessive surface removal of the interior glass.

Allen

Figment · Post by **Figment** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:00 pm

I've had reasonable success with a "Norton RapidStrip".

It doesn't get every last little molecule of paint out of the deep crevices, but it does pretty well. I figure any paint it leaves behind is well adhered enough to avoid problems.

For large-scale work I would imagine blasting to be a lot faster, but at $20 it's hard to beat.

Jason K · Post by **Jason K** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:23 am

Thanks Mike,

Looked neat so I ordered it. Macaroni and cheese again tonight....... :)

I'll let you all know how it works out.

Figment · Post by **Figment** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:58 pm

oh, but pay no attention to that photo I ripped off of froogle. the notion that this thing could be used in a cordless drill is just comical. The battery will last all of ten minutes.

Use a corded drill, preferably one with a trigger hold-down button.

Jason K · Post by **Jason K** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:20 pm

Yeah, I thought that was your boat - until I saw the photo on the Jamestown site.

Probably works as well as one of those electric ab workout belts. :)

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:34 am

Figment wrote:I've had reasonable success with a "Norton RapidStrip".

It doesn't get every last little molecule of paint out of the deep crevices, but it does pretty well. I figure any paint it leaves behind is well adhered enough to avoid problems.

For large-scale work I would imagine blasting to be a lot faster, but at $20 it's hard to beat.

I tired a wire brush fitting on my drill without much success, but this might be just the ticket. I'll give it a try. $20 is a lot less than a bead blaster system would cost.

Thx for the advice! :)

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:26 pm

I got on the Jamestown Distributing website looking to purchase a RapidStrip and one of the guys suggested Ready-Strip Marine or Aqua-Strip based on the size of the job. Does anyone have any experience with these chemical paint removers? According to the guy on the JD forum, neither requires a respirator if you do not spray them on, but apply them with a brush.

PS. I am planning on getting a RapidStrip for touching up paint problems in the future.

Jason K · Post by **Jason K** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:46 pm

I've used some of the marine stripper (from West Marine) and was very disappointed with the results. I thought they would be easier than sanding for the toerails. Frankly, it sucked. It left much of the paint on and was an unholy mess. I ended up tossing almost the whole tub.

I also ordered the RapidStrip from Jamestown. It never arrived, though, and when I called I was told it was out of stock. I ordered two more DA sanders instead from Amazon - back to basics.

It might be worth noting that I tried the stripper in 100+ degree heat. I can't imagine how hot the decks were. That may have had a negative impact on the product's effectiveness.

pv140 · Post by **pv140** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:46 pm

I've been looking at soda blasting equipment on the internet. It looks to be a good alternative to chemical paint strippers and sand blasting. Anyone have experience with this or know about the best equipment for this?

Post by **dasein668** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:00 pm

I have a friend that used the soda blasting equipment. His report was that it was OK, but not great. Certainly not the same as a sand/bead blaster. And it is nearly as messy as the sand blaster. Maybe worse because it's wet.

On the other hand, it doesn't have the environmental concerns with grit recycling...