Well it was a sound idea – sadly it was also an idea my current equipment couldn’t keep up with…
I’m talking of course about a home made soda blaster that takes all of about 10 minutes to build provided you have everything on hand:
Air powered Blow/dust gun
Length of hose
Box of baking soda
Compressor to power it all.
When it’s all said and done, it looks something like this:
How does this soda blaster work?
With science! The air the dust gun pumps out also provides some kind of suction action known as the Venturi effect. Long story short when you pull the trigger both air comes out of the gun and baking soda is sucked up the tube. The granules of powder are hurled at full force towards your project and explode, providing some kind of air powered cleaning solution.
So what would you use a home made soda blaster for then?
When working it’s a great parts cleaner. Plenty of people have used a home made soda blaster to get grime off engine bits due to soda not pitting the metal – it’s great for cleaning up rough looking carbys for example. I was hoping that it would work on a couple of backyard bench bits I had that I’m hoping to redo into a nice looking chair again. Well that was the idea…
How much to make one myself?
Provided you already have a (decent) compressor at home, all the bits and pieces you need should only set you back about $20. I had to buy an additional nitto connector because of the hose I was using so that was an extra $10. Baking soda is fairly cheap but depending on your project, you may need a lot of it.
So did your weekend project of a home made soda blaster work in the end?
Yes, technically it did – but as this Youtube clip will explain it did have a couple of hiccups and it turned what looks to be a long term project into an even longer one…
With a small part and a proper hose though, it’s a great little project. Just not with what I currently have and not for project park bench it looks like…