Harbor Freight soda blasters-good?
 

Does anyone have any experience with Harbor Freight soda blasters? I was looking at their 40LB portable soda blaster unit and as with most HF stuff it's unfathomable to me how they can sell something for that cheap and still make money.

I know you get what you pay for, but does anyone have any testimonies/reviews to share about their portable soda blaster line?

http://www.harborfreight.com/40-lb-p...ter-67625.html

^^^^ The soda blaster in question


A video "review" of the same type of soda blaster except for capacity (15LB
model)

Tell me your oppinions.

If you are planning only to soda blast smaller parts, this is even cheaper:

http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-o.../soda_blaster/

I have no experience with the harbor freight version. I would expect the plastic pressure regulator to fail the first or second time you pull the unit over by tugging on the outlet hose to reach something. I can see the blue plastic line failing over time as well. My frugality would probably overcome any doubts I might have about working within 20 feet of a Chinese welded pressure vessel (My big Craftsman compressor was probably made in China - I try not to think about it and drain the moisture religiously).

For users like most of us, it is probably fine....

I have seen that DIY soda blaster. If i set up a soda blasting system it would probably be used by my parents too, as both my Mum and Dad are pretty mechanically inclined and would deffinitely use it for stripping often if i had it.

I saw a video by the same user that provided the "review" and he said it works very well if you have the air volume to run it (30 gallon main resevoir at least) and maintain it well too (assemble it properly, not using an automatic oiler line to power the soda blaster, cleaning out the moisture trap that comes with the unit and/or getting a better water trap separately).

Size of the compressor tank doesn't directly relate to the capacity of the compressor pump, only to how long you can draw air before the pump starts again. This soda blaster will chew through 15+ CFM @ 90 PSI if the pressure is set up where you will think it should be for actually blasting stuff. The unit itself is probably fine, the blast nozzles OK for a while. Dry air is a must, and you'll want for a lot more air than most home oilless rotary-vane compressors will pump.

No experience with that one, but I bought one of their benchtop blasting cabinets and use it with their soda (really Arm and Hammer's) and one of their compressors (4HP 10 Gallon 110V piston type). Takes a while, and you have to be really close to the work, but it does work well, and still a ton faster than manual methods.

These are the results when I did a valve job on my GPz 750 and needed to clean carbon buildup from the head. By hand, with various chemicals, this was going nowhere. With the blasting soda, it only took a few minutes to have a very clean result.

It should speed up my project up quite nicely, and it doesn't take off plating and coatings like the old elbow grease and wire brush/chemical methods. I went into the process of cleaning the engine bay with a steam machine, it was like pissing in the wind plus all the steam did to the greases were push them around.

For doing something small this might be worth a try-

http://www.harborfreight.com/21-oz-h...gun-95793.html