Dcal
Member
- Messages
- 3,861
- Location
- Antrim Northern Ireland
A few months ago I decided I needed a vapour blaster to clean alloy parts.
I did a bit of googling and it all made sense so I thought I'd give it a bash.
Many, many years ago I bought a couple of central heating pumps at an auction (for a couple of quid) and thought they had potential for mixing the grit and delivering it to the blast gun.
Pulled one out to see what I had.
It ran, even if the bearings are noisy, but I broke the fan on the other one, so I decided to leave this one well alone until I see if it pumps.
I did give it a clean and a lick of paint
Then started to sort the pipe work.
First, was a couple of flange plates
,
For the tank, I went for an old gas bottle because it was free, but it also has a nice dished base which I thought would help in keeping the blast grit in suspension.
I removed the valve, filled it with water and cut the top off with the plasma.
Then welded an outlet to the side of the tank for the inlet side of the pump.
And added a cover plate.
The outlet from the pump splits, with half the flow going to the blast gun and the other half being returned to the bottom of the tank, to agitate the grit and get it into suspension. (Well that’s the theory)
I put valves on so I could adjust the flows to each part of the system.
I did a bit of googling and it all made sense so I thought I'd give it a bash.
Many, many years ago I bought a couple of central heating pumps at an auction (for a couple of quid) and thought they had potential for mixing the grit and delivering it to the blast gun.
Pulled one out to see what I had.
It ran, even if the bearings are noisy, but I broke the fan on the other one, so I decided to leave this one well alone until I see if it pumps.
I did give it a clean and a lick of paint
Then started to sort the pipe work.
First, was a couple of flange plates
,
For the tank, I went for an old gas bottle because it was free, but it also has a nice dished base which I thought would help in keeping the blast grit in suspension.
I removed the valve, filled it with water and cut the top off with the plasma.
Then welded an outlet to the side of the tank for the inlet side of the pump.
And added a cover plate.
The outlet from the pump splits, with half the flow going to the blast gun and the other half being returned to the bottom of the tank, to agitate the grit and get it into suspension. (Well that’s the theory)
I put valves on so I could adjust the flows to each part of the system.