Build Your Own Sand/Shot Blaster

I am quite a classic car enthusiast and in the past years I´ve restored a few. Some restoration projects are more costly than others, but you can cut down costs dramatically in restoration if you do it yourself! Same thing if you build your own sand blaster as I have and it´s not as complicated as one would think!

But first and foremost – protect yourself!

Use a professional dust particle filter for your nose and mouth, exposure to this dust can be hazardous to your health and eventually lead to silicosis!

Wear protective head and upper body gear, you do not want rebounding sand/shot particles (known as media) hitting your face and don´t forget the thick leather gloves!

Back to the project

I used an old and empty 35 liter steel gas bottle for this! Make sure the bottle has absolutely no gas whatsoever! The original valve on the bottle has to be removed. You can do this safely, again making sure that there is no gas in the bottle but there always will be residual gas, by filling it up to the brim with water!

This will annul the residual gas smell! After I was sure that the inside is clean of gas I removed the valve and with an angle grinder, cut off the handle and the base. Next step I´ve turned the bottle upside down and welded a pair of wheels to it and a steel bar as a stand! This makes the blaster deposit easily maneuverable!

Now you´ve got the upside down bottle with wheels ready to open a hole, but the size of the hole depends on the material you got around your place that you can use as an airtight opening where you could pour in your sand/shot media. I used an old water filter with watertight, excuse me, in this case, air tight lid!

When I finished welding this lid, my next step was to drill a hole on its side has high as possible! This hole is where the air from the compressor is going to enter, so the hole is the limit level that you will fill up the bottle with sand or shot!

The air coming from the compressor not only has to go into the bottle and pressurize it, as well it has to bypass the bottle going down and in to a “T” where it will catch and blow the media used!

The bottom valve regulates the amount of media that falls into the “T”, and then the media flows inside a reinforced 7 meter long hose and ends up being re-pressurized as it passes through the valve and out the nozzle!

This project of mine is working perfectly and saving me time and money on my Mini Sport restoration.

Just to conclude, I have also used this blaster on removing paint from old doors and furniture with very good results!