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As with most "Made in China" products, this blaster is a bit short on safety features and operation instructions, even if you do have the manual. A couple more things to know: 1) The nozzle shut-off valve is a simple threaded ball valve, available for $4.00 at Home Depot. These will wear out from the sand flowing through. They are the second most frequent wear item after the nozzle. They last much longer if you keep the valve fully open or fully closed, and move it quickly between those two positions. Don't try to throttle the output with the shut-off valve. 2) The shut-off lacks a "dead man" feature. It is a violation of OSHA rules to have an employee operate this blaster. One of the reasons Chinese goods are inexpensive is the savings in workplace safety, environmental laws, product safety, product testing, and product liability issues. As you lower yourself to Third World standards in this area, you become more responsible for your own safety. While you are operating the blaster, make sure there is nothing to trip over and you are covered from head to toe in sturdy clothing. It really, really hurts to sandblast bare skin. 3) Wear a good quality respirator. Make sure it fits tightly. If you are using real sand, the OSHA standard is supplied air respirators only due to the free silica and poor warning properties of the dust. The paint chips undoubtedly contain lead; something you also want to avoid inhaling. 4) The hood supplied with this unit is a joke. You will want to arrange for better eye and face protection. 5) The design is a reasonable copy of a U.S. product, but I don't think they knew how it was supposed to work. Certainly the directions don't explain it very well. The third valve at the top of the pressure chamber is called the "choke". For normal operation it should be wide open. But if the sand stops flowing because of a clog, try closing this valve. This directs all the airflow to the top of the tank and helps to blow out the clog. 6) The valve at the bottom of the tank is the sand throttle and should be adjusted to your taste. Generally, "lean" mixtures with less sand and more air are preferred. 7) As you run low on sand, the sand tends to stick to the walls of the chamber. Try banging the third leg of the tripod against the ground. This will usually get it going for another 10 minutes or so. 8) Use a silica-free blast media such as "Black Beauty" or "Vitro Grit", not beach sand or kid's play sand. This blaster works too slowly and clogs too easily for it to make economic sense to try to collect and reuse the media. Good quality media avoids the lung damage that results from silicosis caused by inhaling the dust from blasting. And it comes in sealed bags which keeps the contaminants and humidity down, and thus the clogging. You can blast a whole tractor for $70.00 worth of media. It will take you hours to strip it down -- the time will double if you try to sift and reuse the media.
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