Topic: Soda blasting

[kerryb]

Years ago there was a flurry of talk about soda blasting carbs.  The beauty of it. Was that warm water will dissolve the media so tiny passageways can't be clogged in your carbs.  So I bought a HF soda blaster to get my carbs clean.  I even did a whole assembled (ready to run) engine that way before painting it. ('nother story!)  The trouble arose with my timing, because I didn't want to blast in my sandblast/paint booth so I did it outside in a place where killing the grass wasn't a big deal.  This worked OK, as long as the wind cooperated and I covered eyes, ears,hair, really well.  But blasting outside, in the snow and rain grew tedious fast.  Shaking the blaster tank to get it to flow media was also tedious, set the gun down, shake the tank, pick the gun up...  so...the other night I want to blast some carbs, but it's dark and rainy, crap...I want to get this done...so I put the soda in my spot blaster for sandblasting...and did it in my sandblasting booth, figuring, how bad can it be?  I'll deal with the mess when it happens.
Well somebody gets an "A" for misleading advertising!  Soda blasting media runs through my $35.00 sandblasting gun just fine!  I can even adjust the amount of media on the fly.  To get it to flow better, tilt the gun forward.  To reload the gun, I have a coffee can of media in the booth where I can reach it with the gloves on , easy peasy.  You might want to wait till I clean up to see what issues arise, but if you want an easy, cheap way to clean carbs, without the cost of ultrasonic cleaner or shipping them out, this could be it.  Picture is the blaster I have running off a 3 1/2 gallon compressor at 80psi.  Pace myself to give the compressor time to catch up.  Now...how am I going to get the 550f engine in the booth, on a turntable...that will be fun...

[SanDogDewey]

My first soda blasting adventure was with a Harbor Freight blaster in the parking lot of my friend’s industrial building. It came out great but looked like a cocaine deal gone bad until we hosed everything down. I’ve since installed a large compressor and blasting booth. I’m looking at this attachment to be able to soda blasting in my cabinet. Anybody have experience with it?

[flybackwards]

These guys make the best little soda blasting unit - its called portable soda blaster on the web site - basically a 10 pound fire extinguisher bottle but well thought out and works well. I did all the small metal parts on my CB750 with it.

https://www.ace-sandblasting.com/soda-blasting.html

[Don R]

 I did soda blasting out by the garage and killed the grass. The next time I stayed on the concrete but the new vinyl siding static attracted the dust and my wife spotted the dust on the new siding. She was convinced it was ruined and washing it was the only way to SHTFU. Not sure what's my plan for next time, maybe a long air line and do it in the woods.

[Gurp]

I was always real cheap and used a air gun and a cut piece of fuel line fed into a box of household baking soda. got my carbs done. never real blasted anything else though...