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quick way to dry out sand?


plane_crazzy

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I just got my pressurized sand blaster hooked up went to the store and bought some sand to try it out. to my disappointment all they had was sand that had water droplets on the inside of the bag from condensation. when I tore open the bags the sand was wet to the touch. If I try to pour this in my blaster it is gonna give me nothing but problems. any suggestions on best way to dry out about 200lbs of sand?

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Get a tarp and lay it out on the black top drive way. Pour the sand on the tarp in a thin layer, and let it set in the sun. Oh yes, try to keep the neighbors cats out of your sand box.

To recover the sand, lift the edge of the tarp and move the sand to the middle where it can be shoveled out and into containers.

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The supplier said no more silica sand because of the silica.

The replacement is Black Beauty. It is a coal slag abrasive material designed for use in removing paint and rust from steel and concrete on bridges, ships, barges, tanks, etc. It can be used indoors and outdoors. Available in medium grit, packaged in 100-lb. bags.

You can also blast with steel shot, crushed walnut hulls, baking soda, or dry ice. Dry ice just goes away and only the removed material to clean up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is good reason sand is no longer used (apart from the referring to the tool as a sand blaster). It is slow to cut, breaks up fast and the dust is bad for your lungs.

I use chilled steel shot for mild steel, Aluminium Oxide for Stainless and non ferrous, and glass bead for surface peening and cleaning. I tend to use the aluminium oxide and the glass bead in a little suction feed gun rather than bother to clean out every trace of the chilled steel from the cabinet and pressure pot system.

I use the suction gun on an air line in the cabinet so I can utilise the light, dust extraction and the containment it provides. I tend to use the Aluminium Oxide and Glass Bead sacrificially and do not recycle it...you only need a couple of bits of contaminant to really mess up an bead blasted surface.

If you do not have a cabinet or the workpiece is too big for the cabinet, I have had a lot of success using a large polythene bag (find a Farmer friend making Haylage) or making up a polythene envelope using polytunnel or builders clear polythene. Leave a small hole to poke the gun and your hands in. You can see through the bag to the work piece and all the grit and removed material is contained instead of spread around the workshop or yard!

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Medium quartz silica sand is available at Home Depot for 6-7$ per 100lb bag. I use it all the time for sandblasting.........And I wear a respirator, NBD....... :mellow:


It was the speed and efficiency of chilled steel shot that made me use it.....at the risk of being cheeky and deliberately misconstruing your post... you don't have to "use it all the time"! :)

I hate the process and want it over as soon as possible, on a particularly dusty job I will use either and air fed mask or respirator even when its in the dust extracted cabinet.
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It was the speed and efficiency of chilled steel shot that made me use it.....at the risk of being cheeky and deliberately misconstruing your post... you don't have to "use it all the time"! :)



Well, you quoted what I paid for the sand you cheeky monkey, :D how bout you tell us what you pay for chilled steel shot?.... .....I don't have a recovery system and the cost of steel shot would break my......% of profit......Frequently is more what I meant by ''all the time'', I use bicarbonate of soda on occasion and the inferior (imo)and more expensive coal slag stuff as well...To each his own. I'm not here to sell sand I just feel sand is ok if the proper precautions are taken..... B)
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The supplier said no more silica sand because of the silica.


The saftey police at work again! Same reason I can't find a decent gas can for my lawnmower.

I imagine if you can't wait for the sun to dry it out you could bake it in your oven on cookie sheets.
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Well, you quoted what I paid for the sand you cheeky monkey, :D how bout you tell us what you pay for chilled steel shot?.... .....I don't have a recovery system and the cost of steel shot would break my......% of profit......Frequently is more what I meant by ''all the time'', I use bicarbonate of soda on occasion and the inferior (imo)and more expensive coal slag stuff as well...To each his own. I'm not here to sell sand I just feel sand is ok if the proper precautions are taken..... B)


Yes yes absolutely, I used it for many years before I discovered the chilled steel. But I even used to recover and reuse that in my polythene bag recovery system.

Cost wise I don't know, I have not bought any for a decade or so, I bought half a dozen sacks and still have some left, I was not joking when I said it lasts a long time!
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First place I found on line that was not 10 ton minimum, $35 per 50 lb bag.
http://www.ebay.com/...1a#ht_578wt_943


I am sorry I have just realised looking at that link that I do not use Chilled Steel Shot. I think the stuff I use is Chilled Iron Grit and it looks like the surface of the asteroid that Bruce Willis drilled in that wonderful disaster movie. I did have a look for it on the vixen.co.uk site where I got it from but they don't seem to list their media. The oppo company guyson.co.uk does list a couple of iron based media. I will telephone Vixen tomorrow and find out the cost and spec. now you have got me interested!
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Disposeable aluminum turkey or lasagna pans and a propane barbecue, dries it out in no time and you don't have to worry about kitty presents. Do it a batch at a time as you need it or do the whole works at once.

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!-! Sand bags roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose.... :)

The chilled iron grit that would save you the toasting labour and cut back your oxide, scale, rust, paint quicker comes in different grits. I used a fairly aggressive one.

They range from G05 to G55 the higher the number the coarser the grit. Vixen's current price is £27.50 sterling for 20kg I convert that to US$42.8 for 44US pounds. Initial outlay a lot more than the sand but saving hugely with longevity, recylabilty and crucially less labour time.

The link should get you to a data sheet for it. You could always blag a bit from a local blast shop to try it out.

http://www.pytheasgroup.com/sand-blasting-abrasives/chilled-iron-grit/?gclid=CMbwrtLM8bACFcYmtAod7i7xug

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if you need a quick dry out, do glenns idea, if you need a really quick dry out, lay it on a cookie sheet, and take the propane torch to it. we did this in masonry when we had wet sand and the mortar was already wet enough, but we used a wheelbarrow and a big torch. we -redried it each shovel. i dont know how much you specifically need for this project, but baking and grilling the sand works too.

and if its somthing smaller, i know a man here in kosh that bought an old clothes dryer drum from the junkyard (without holes) put a different electric motor in it and just went to the store and bought some steel bbs (about the size of whats in your bbgun) and threw them in there. he would leave it running, watch jeproady or wheel of fortune and come out during commercials to check how it was doing. it works well, dont ask me how but it does.

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and if its somthing smaller, i know a man here in kosh that bought an old clothes dryer drum from the junkyard (without holes) put a different electric motor in it and just went to the store and bought some steel bbs (about the size of whats in your bbgun) and threw them in there. he would leave it running, watch jeproady or wheel of fortune and come out during commercials to check how it was doing. it works well, dont ask me how but it does.


Interesting, the noise must have been awful, I hope his neighbours watched the same shows! I never tried steel shot in my tumblers, it may have been the solution.

When I was doing jewellery I made up a tumbler from an old record player turntable tilted to 30 degrees and a plastic screw top pot held on by a clip. I used offcuts and beads of silver in washing up liquid and used to chuck in stuff and leave it going. It worked really well to take off the Easyflo flux and give a soft sheen. 33rpm was best!

When I was doing a lot of domestic ironwork I invariably finished it with a burnished, armour bright surface which was either lacquer-and-waxed or latterly just Renaissance waxed.

I started off with a Phosphoric Acid Pickle, soda rinse, water rinse, dry, rotary wire brush.

Thought I could improve the process and reduce the labour so....

I tried various tumblers for ironwork, making a 600mm AF 1220mm (2' AF 4'long) hexagonal drum mounted on a frame with a reduction gear drive....Slow belt slip problems, took too long to load /unload. I also used a concrete mixer....Too noisy and too small for firetools' length. Eventually I bought a commercially produced rumbler which had a rubber lined trough on springs, and a motor hung underneath with an eccentric weight to provide vibration. That produced a good finish.

But.

The trouble I found with the rumbler for steelwork and the reason I went on to dry blasting was that you needed a wet system otherwise the granite chippings or ceramic media just pulverised itself and mixed in with the rust/scale to produce a mud. That meant that you had to rinse the drum to get rid of the slurry...I do not have slurry separators and drains suitable to deal with it. The ironwork also needed rinsing after rumbling and then of course drying, any lamination or tong joint was a potential rust area if you did not manage to get the moisture out. It added more stages than the original pickling system.

The dry blasting and wire brushing did work out the most effective for the objects and quantities I was producing.
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