So, I discovered soda blasters for cleaning & paint removal, & was investigating them on the web. Then I came upon this homemade soda blaster that the guy made to clean parts like dirty carbs. Considering all the crap on a rover that needs to be cleaned, I thought this board may be interested.

 

Soda blasting works great, and that's an interesting tool idea. I would imagine it works ok. Basically a cheap siphon blaster. I was going to buy a soda blasting machine, then, for the heck of it I put some soda in my pressure sand blaster and then put the smallest tip I had on it and it worked great. After that, I put soda in my hand blaster and that worked just as well. http://www.harborfreight.com/21-oz-h...gun-95793.html . I pretty much use the hand blaster now since I don't do a ton of soda blasting. It's a convenient tool for small jobs. I would personally recommend getting one of these hand blasters over making one because number one they aren't very expensive and two, you can use it for sand blasting as well (which you wouldn't be able to do with the hand-built unit. I've seen those H/F units on sale for as low as $15. They regularly go on sale.

I soda blasted some aluminum and cast parts and I was really impressed with how clean they came out ...kind of like that carburetor in the link. Removed paint pretty quickly as well. Doesn't work worth a darn on rust. For faster paint removal I sometimes blend in some silica sand with the mix. Only do that on parts you want to paint as it also adds some texture but not as much as pure sand blasting. Be highly careful to clean your parts off well that you want to paint after soda blasting. I painted a bunch of Corvette parts I blasted with soda and later when I went to install them, the paint flaked off in large sheets. I know I did a very good job cleaning off. I had to strip them again and re-paint. My suggestion is to wash the soda-blasted parts with water and dry immediately.

Last thing I learned about soda blasting was that it creates a huge cloud of white dust that you may want to be attentitive to if you have neighbors close by. And, something I didn't read on the internet anywhere (and made sense once I thought about it afterwards), is that it killed the grass on the part of lawn that I blasted on. A big patch. Not only that, no grass or weeds would grow in that area for a few months. It must have changed the PH. Eventually it straightened out. So, beware where you do your blasting. Thanks for the tip.

 

Thank you for the tip! I would have been upset if I had killed my grass!

 

Another thing: You might want to consider pricing up some Soda in a bag if you do much blasting. I haven't calculated it out but a 30-50 lb bag is a LOT of soda. Seems like it would be cheaper than the store bought stuff. I bought mine at Harbor Freight on sale one time. The other thing is if it's milled any differently for better cutting. I believe I read something about that at one time. Just the same as silica sand is milled with sharper edges than, say, cement sand, or play sand. If you ever blasted with play or construction sand, you can blast all day long and hardly cut the rust. It just bounces off the metal, doesn't work worth a crap, or flow through the blaster very well. Just a suggestion.

 

Playground sand has been washed and left slightly damp to reduce dust; it is full of moisture and will not flow even in a pressurized pot. Construction (cement sand) sand is actually an aggregate (lots of different sized bits mixed together) and will also clog up and generally not preform very well.