Garnet mesh?

[chuck 47 plym]

Has anyone tried using garnet mesh for media blasting? Im trying to find a safer alternative to sand for blasting my frame that has pretty heavy rust. 

[Tooljunkie]

Start with a needle scaler. Bought a cheap one and did a trailer frame. Worked better than sandblasting in my opinion. Noisy and dirty but effective. 

[Plymouthy Adams]

Needle gun is really effective but only on a metal heavy enough to stand up to the impact without distortion.   The Harbor Freight scaler gun is a great buy for most home projects.  I scaled some 40 square feet with this cheapo and only lost one needle from the gun.  Very effective and cheap.   Careful what you use it on.  Phosphoric acid works great on scale if you know the tricks of using it.   As for sand blasting...if blasting out doors erecting a back and side apron along with a tarp floor, you will recover most of your media for reuse.  Correct protection equipment and the #30 sand is great, hard to beat for cutting and best bang for the buck.  Garnet, black diamond and other is good for cabinet blasters.  Any media for blasting is not good for breathing nor is the paint dust it is cutting.  I like to set up and blast out of doors the large stuff in the manner I described above.  The small particles that disintegrate and become dust usually drifts away.  Set up correctly you can blast an entire car for less than 25.00 of sand and have about 15 gallon of good used sand left over for later.  

[kencombs]

12 hours ago, chuck 47 plym said:

Has anyone tried using garnet mesh for media blasting? Im trying to find a safer alternative to sand for blasting my frame that has pretty heavy rust. 

I haven''t, but always use a painters mask when blasting.  Please consider that garnet is also has silicon as a component and may not be any safer.  Sand is usually contains silicon dioxide, garnet  is a silicate containing silicon as SiO4.

[Dan Hiebert]

Garnet is what I am using in my blast cabinet right now.  I am quite pleased with its performance.  Especially rusty things, from surface rust to heavy rust.  Garnet has a longer life than sand, and I've heard maybe a bit longer than aluminum oxide, too.  But, it still produces a lot of dust, not much less than sand that I can tell, so dust protection is no less critical.  Probably more so because the dust particles may be sharper (?).  Using garnet instead of sand in an open air application would work quicker, but you'd want to weigh the cost of one use of garnet vs. one use of sand.  I don't know what that answer would be, I haven't even thought of using sand in a long time. 

[Plymouthy Adams]

I suggest that if you use the sand, buy GRADED sand blasting sand and not try to cheap out at Lowes with sandbox sand.  For the money, you get the correct stuff at about the same cost.....

[chuck 47 plym]

I am blasting inside my shop since it is heated. I dont have any ventilation system in it. I do have a blast hood and a respirator with the replaceable filters. I used a wire wheel to remove as much of the flaky rust as i could get to with it. I have set uo a tarp aroud the frame to try to stop as much of whatever I use from going throughout my shop. 

[Plymouthy Adams]

I highly discourage you from indoor blasting.....you will be eating that dust for the remainder of your lifetime and items in the shop will suffer a shorter lifespan.  Even if a bit cold...take this outdoors.  

[lonejacklarry]

7 hours ago, Plymouthy Adams said:

I highly discourage you from indoor blasting.....you will be eating that dust for the remainder of your lifetime and items in the shop will suffer a shorter lifespan.  Even if a bit cold...take this outdoors.  

 

 

Absolutely the truth here.  The outdoors is the only place for sand blasting.

[Tooljunkie]

On 2/6/2020 at 1:30 PM, Plymouthy Adams said:

I highly discourage you from indoor blasting.....you will be eating that dust for the remainder of your lifetime and items in the shop will suffer a shorter lifespan.  Even if a bit cold...take this outdoors.  

You will regret it!  
That being said, i have blasted indoors successfully. Empty cardboard box with glass taped to one end,a hole for my arm and hose. And a 4 or 5” hole to blast through. I blast away, most rebounded sand ends up in box. 
great on flat surfaces,frame rails would require some creativity.