Water Blasting

B

Brian Crombie

Guest
Pie ChartsGreetings All,
While searching for a local media blaster, I came across a guy that tells me he
can strip my old Amphi paint with 36,000 PSI of water. Yes, that's with three
zeros. Told him I was surprised some form of damage doesn't occur with such a
high pressure. He reassured me that no damage such as warping or tearing will
happen. He also claims that water blasting removes all rust. Even from the
bottom of pitted areas. Unlike media blasting, further treatment such as sand
blasting is required to get deeply rusted pitted spots.
The only drawback he states is surface rust will occur quickly from using water
so priming the part needs to happen fast. Prior to my conversation with him
today, I had never heard of this process. I was wondering if anyone else has
heard of or had an experience with water blasting. Good or bad, please let me
know.

Hope all is well!

Brian Crombie
Faribault, Mn.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
W

WB6WSN

Guest
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Crombie
To: amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 6:48 PM
Subject: [amphicar-lovers] Water Blasting


Pie ChartsGreetings All,
While searching for a local media blaster, I came across a guy that tells me
he can strip my old Amphi paint with 36,000 PSI of water. Yes, that's with three
zeros. Told him I was surprised some form of damage doesn't occur with such a
high pressure. He reassured me that no damage such as warping or tearing will
happen. He also claims that water blasting removes all rust. Even from the
bottom of pitted areas. Unlike media blasting, further treatment such as sand
blasting is required to get deeply rusted pitted spots.
The only drawback he states is surface rust will occur quickly from using
water so priming the part needs to happen fast. Prior to my conversation with
him today, I had never heard of this process. I was wondering if anyone else
has heard of or had an experience with water blasting. Good or bad, please let
me know.

Hope all is well!

Brian Crombie
Faribault, Mn.


Brian:

No real experience, just some anecdotal stuff. I have seen high-pressure
water-cutting of titanium forgings. Very noisy and very frightening / impressive
process. The water just lances through the work like a hot wire through plastic
foam. Distance and focus are critical; a concentrated stream will slice sheet
metal like Moses parting the Red Sea. The high working pressure even rapidly
erodes the special ceramic nozzles.

So, the capability to really screw up is certainly a concern. It all depends on
the skill of the operator. Maybe he has some references or will let you look at
one of his jobs? It might be a very interesting alternative to air blasting, so,
if you decide to plunge onward, take plenty of pics and post your experiences.

Regards,

Ed
El Cajon
67 Rust Guppy


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 
L

Larry & Nancy Solheim

Guest
In my 'working days' we had a "competitor" in Renton
who also rebuilt a lot of carts and racks for Kenworth
Truck and Boeing. They used waterblasting to remove
rust and or grease & oil from frames. It worked well,
although care is still required to avoid overstress of
thin materials. Different from waterjet cutting which
is a lowcost alternative to laser cutting.

As an aside, they also use waterblasting to remove the
old paint lines off roadways in highway construction,
repair/building.

--LarryS



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L

Larry & Nancy Solheim

Guest
In my 'working days' we had a "competitor" in Renton
who also rebuilt a lot of carts and racks for Kenworth
Truck and Boeing. They used waterblasting to remove
rust and or grease & oil from frames. It worked well,
although care is still required to avoid overstress of
thin materials. Different from waterjet cutting which
is a lowcost alternative to laser cutting.

As an aside, they also use waterblasting to remove the
old paint lines off roadways in highway construction,
repair/building.

--LarryS



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
 
R

Rusty & Janell Gibson

Guest
Hey Brian,
There is some really safe ways to strip paint. Probably the best is
soda blasting. It is actually baking soda. It will not heat up the
surface so there for will not warp the metal. The coolest thing about
it, is that after the surface is stripped it leaves a coating that will
protect the raw metal from flash rusting. Soda is gentle enough to pill
the paint off a beer can without putting a hole in the can. Potassium is
another media being used. My father is an amphicar owner and we have
stripped amphicar parts with soda. There's several good web sites out
there that tell about it. I'm almost positive that there is some soda
blasters in your state and they might be of some help to you. And if
you would like to talk more about it you can email me at
rrrebels@wtp.net. My father and I do media blasting for a small side
job and we can tell you of some media to stay away from on car bodies.

Rusty Gibson
Columbus, MT
 
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