MG Magnette restoration -lower suspension arm sandblasting

Restoration of a 1955 MG ZA Magnette lower suspension arm in a home made sandblasting cabinet. This cabinet is made of wood and chipboard plus some other things I found. The chipboard is from an old water bed that had some water damage but mostly straight. Wood, glass, door hinges, commercial vacuum cleaner, electrical switches(240VAC) and electrical wire I found on the side of the road on a hard rubbish day. I provided bolts, screws, door latches, PVC tube + joints, air fittings, hose clamps, down light (with transformer 12VDC), heavy duty cleaning gloves and door seal. The sandblasting gun is from a cheap venturi pack available at most hardware stores with no modifications. I built the cabinet as air tight as I could with some appropriately placed slots on either side of the window for airflow with the vacuum. The cabinet is about 90cm x 90cm x 90cm and I have found that the large size in addition with the bright light make for excellent visibility and a low amount of dust accumulating on the glass. I am using garnet as the media for this job but have also used glass beads for aluminum. Still some bugs to work out but as you can see it works great! All comments welcome.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• mg
• magnette
• za
• zb
• 1955
• sandblasting
• sand
• blasting
• suspension
• diy
• home
• made
• how
• to
• do
• it
• yourself

[paraplegicu]

What`s the power of your air suply(compressor)? How many liter per minute?

[goldkey71]

Hi paraplegicu, yes it is a singe phase(240Vac) compressor. I think it puts out 27 cubic feet per minute or at least it did when it was new, some 20 years ago! I have also added a second compressor to provide another 27ft/min just to stop the first from getting to hot. When hot it tends to carry alot more atomised oil and water though the line to the job.

[paraplegicu]

Thanks for your quick response. So, if my compressor have a 35 ft per minute, i can make a good job, no? And the gun, what is your recommendation? Its has to be a profi one or can i do the job with a cheap one?

[goldkey71]

35ft/min should be fine. I have a very cheap gun, one of the venturi type that you can buy in a pack including spare tips, hoses and the metal tube that goes in your bucket of sand. Mine does tend to pulse a little bit but I think that is a problem with the sand not flowing rather than the gun kit. I keep the bucket of sand near so I can give it a kick every now and then. A pro gun would be nice but I think I could make a complete sandblasting box including the gun for the same money.

[evcrawfish]

just made my sandblast cabinet out of an old 55 gallon steel drum i had laying around. i bought a bunch of them for 5 bucks ea. not quite as big as yours but it should get the job done.

btw great job on yours

[goldkey71]

Thanks for the comments evcrafish.

Your cabinet sounds great and very practical, I think I got a bit carried away with thes size but I would hate to have gone to all that trouble and then find that something wont fit. One mistake I made was to put the vacuum point down to low in the cabinet. It sucks up to much sand with the dust.

[paraplegicu]

Thanks a lot! I must say that you have some skills!:)

[chompychomps]

Why but an expensive cabinet when you can make one like this? I did something similar for 150 bucks (new shop-vac=100.00) with subflooring scraps, window caulk, screws, furring, window glass, weather stripping, etc. and I can now do a fender well, heads, rims, etc. Even though it is sealed right, I still use a fancy respirator. Good job.

[rcarlsonaz]

nice video man! great cabinet!