Sandblaster Use for Car Restoration

There are a lot of people that are unfamiliar with sandblasting and that it can be a very effective machine to use for cleaning car parts such as the sheet metal on the body or engine parts. Usually the newer car restorers haven’t discovered sandblasting yet so I decided to create this article to explain why it’s used and how sandblasting works.

Let’s start with the first part. Sandblasting is used for cleaning, deburring, or roughening up a surface. The surfaces vary depending on what you’re using it for such as sheet metal, outer core car systems, wood, rock, and even glass. The primary purpose it’s used is because it can easily remove the dirt, grime, or rust from hard to get places. A widely used hand tool for getting off rust from metal is a wire brush. Using a wire brush not only takes a lot more time, but it also can’t be reached into those small areas like tight corners. Another solution which requires less physical work is to use a wire wheel brush which gets hooked up to a drill or grinder, but this also won’t help getting in the tight areas.

With sandblasting, the abrasive media is small enough and maneuverable to reach in those hard to get areas. It also helps to do a better cleaning because millions of small abrasive are hitting every small part of the surface. Essentially, sandblasting works by using compressed air to blow or blast abrasive media out of a hose. The abrasive media varies in size, hardness, and type but its always fairly small particles.

From the start, you will need an air compressor to power the sandblaster. This connects to each other with an air hose. Then depending on the type of blaster you have, the air gets mixed with the abrasive media and is forced out of the nozzle.