dust when glass beading

bill mart

Well-known Member
Can the glass beads in my sandblasting cabinet break down and become excessively dusty to the point where the dust collector cant keep up? Lately after a minute or so you cant see a thing from all the dust. Thanks, Bill
 
Maybe the glass shot has become too pulverized. My cabinet is wood and I can smell it when I blast.I know it can cause silicosis.How many psi ? That sounds like a good answer given below.The plastic protector fell off my glass several years back and I never replaced it .The glass stayed clear. I use around 90- 100 psi and don"t have any dust. In fact I have never cleaned the dust collector.I use it about once every weekend.
 
Yes, regardless of wether your using glass beads, sand, Black beauty, or any other hard abrasive for that matter, it will eventually break down into a fine powder. Typically the powder will dust up the inside of the cabinet making it hard to see, do very little actual debris/rust removal because the sharp edges that do the cutting are gone, and often will also clog the nozzle (dependent upon the type of blaster you have). Once you get to this point any time you blast your working really hard to do very little cleaning when you blast. I usually leave a bit of the find stuff in mine, maybe 5% and renew the rest with new stuff. If you haven't done it in awhile it will probably suprise you how much better/faster parts start getting cleaned off again.

That all said, if your doing alot of heavy rust/paint removal, give Black Beauty a shot. It is some pretty agresive stuff. If you want to stick with the glass, give 'ground cullet' a try. It's more coarse than the glass beads and will cut the rust/paint alot faster, if that's what you need.
 

I was nearly done a job using black beauty a few years ago and the going was slow due to too much dust. I laid out a tarp outside the door, put a box fan at one edge, then slowly dumped a bucket full of the black beauty in front of the fan,. the dust blew away and sand fell on the tarp. I was surprised at how well it worked.
 
I had the same problem until I made an adapter to let me use the shop vac for dust removal. I drilled several 1/2" holes in the adapter (think 3-4" long X 2" diameter plastic pipe fastened to the original filter vent)to reduce the suction so I can open the access door while the shop vac is still running.
Hearing protection helps make things much more pleasant while working.
 

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