Topic: Soda blasting carbs. A natural cleaner

[toycollector10]

I lifted this off another forum. It looks pretty good.


http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/soda_blaster/

[SteveD CB500F]

That's brilliant. I've added it to the Carb FAQ.

[Retro Rocket]

Soda blasting is becoming quite common in Aus, leaves a completely smooth finish and cleans up with water.

Mick

[Grumpol]

Vinegar is better to neutralise the soda if your going to paint, if theres any soda left imbedded in the alloy you will never get any type of paint to stick.
With that said it is a great finish and it does no damage like so many other forms of blasting do

[MosquitoJones]

That is the most ingenious thing I think I've ever seen. 

[mcuozzo]

There is a thread(s) on here about soda blasting carbs also.

If you have a compressor, blasting cabinets are under $100 at a lot of discount tool places like Harbor Freight.  You can blast with soda for your delicates and than swith over to coal slag or aluminum oxide for rougher stuff.

If you are going to paint or powder coat any blasted surface here's the order to do things

1. Degrease
2. blast
3. rinse with Acetone or similair
4. Heat (to temp that part would normally see) if possible
5. Repeat steps 1-4 if necessary till surface is clean
6. Paint or powder coat

I don't know that paint on carbs would hold up.  And I would think you would need to totally dissassemble the carbs to isolate the carb bodies for powder coating, since they would need to be heated to at least 375 degrees.

Check out the blasted pics in my gallery (I haven't done my carbs yet)...http://gallery.sohc4.net/main.php?g2_itemId=306724

[chrislib]

thanks for that link!! Outstandingly simple.

[coyotecowboy]

Great find!  Has some pretty good VW tips too

[Bob Wessner]

No kidding, looks like a great idea. So, who is going to be first on the block to try this and report back?

[coyotecowboy]

well, I've got a air powered solvent blaster.  It might just work.  Have to find something to blast first.

[Mustangsean]

Eh, I went ahead and tried it.  It works, but eats a lot of baking soda.  One carb takes around two boxes of baking soda.  But it does break up varnish like crazy!

Sean

[mcuozzo]

Boxes?  When soda blasting you gotta buy that stuff by the 40lb bag!  If you have a recirculating cabinet, you can reclaim some but a lot of it is destroyed by the process and/or sucked out by the dust collector (ie shop vac!).

That's what's good about coal slag, it gets used a bunch of times before it's sucked up as dust.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin]

12lb bags of Arm and Hammer baking soda at Sam's Club for $4.38 yesterday. I read some info a few months back that said there is a better variety of soda specifically for blasting. Perhaps the particles are not as fine??

[Ricky_Racer]

Medium: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=65929:

Large: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=65931

RR

[manjisann]

That is really cool!! I'm getting ready to rebuild a 650 and have toyed with what to do with the carbs. This might just be the way to go!

Brandon

[imamotohead]

I tried out my new toy today and I agree that it really runs through the baking soda.  I think I will try the next smaller hose size.  The beauty of this is how cheap it is!  It did work well though.  I'll report back how the smaller hose works.

[timdhawk]

is there any reason you couldn't just dump a bunch of soda in a normal blast cabinet it you had one? or is there something different with a soda blast set-up compared to a sand /media blast cabinet?

[mcuozzo]

I swap between soda and coal slag in my el cheapo harbor freight cabinet all the time.  Pain in the neck to keep switching though.  I'm gonna get a second cabinet soon.  You can get this one:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93608

For $180.  Just wait for the sale -$219 and sign up for a 20% off coupon - $177!!!  If you already have a decent compressor, that's pretty cheap to be able to blast.

[timdhawk]

I swap between soda and coal slag in my el cheapo harbor freight cabinet all the time.  Pain in the neck to keep switching though.  I'm gonna get a second cabinet soon.  You can get this one:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93608

For $180.  Just wait for the sale -$219 and sign up for a 20% off coupon - $177!!!  If you already have a decent compressor, that's pretty cheap to be able to blast.

Sweet! Thanks... thats the one i already have (just without the light improvement on top). do i need smaller nozzles or anything like that?

[6adan]

I have done a couple of sets of carbs and it works well,in fact I had my wife pick up two bags from Sam's today to do the bike I picked Saturday. It also works on aluminum that is corroded before you start polishing. I use a small blast gun with a hopper on top that I got from Harbor Freight that works OK.

[mcuozzo]

Changing to a smaller nozzle might help, but I didn't and it works fine.  I literally just dump out the coal slag, blow the remainder out of the unit than fill with soda and vice versa.  I don't change a darn thing but the media.  I'm lazy. 

But...You gotta be more careful going from coal to soda.  Leave enough coal (or other hard abrasive) and you might ruin a more delicate piece.  I am thorough about getting all of one media out before putting in the other.  Don't forget to blow out your suction line and the gun body.  Some media likes to hang out in there.

[martino1972]

coal slag..??   don't tell me that's just the ashes from burned coal,is it...?? (I got tons of that... )

[Hinz]

Soda blasting, while much safer to the part than glass bead blasting, takes much longer and uses a lot more media to get even almost close to the same result.  I bought the Harbor Freight bag of soda and ran it thru my blast cabinet.  It took forever so now I'm back to glass bead.  As a bonus, you can recycle the glass bead where you can't with soda.  I just make sure that I really clean the part REALLY GOOD after blasting.

[timdhawk]

I just did the HF soda last night in my cabinet on a shock. it worked very well. The thing that sells me on the soda is that it won't hurt chrome or rubber, whereas glass and certainly other medias will.
I think the "argument" for or against whichever media all comes down to what you want to blast and how much you want to remove.

[Laminar]

Sooooooo badass. I picked up the parts this week: Air gun, attachments, teflon tape, and baking soda at Wal-Mart, ~$12. Ten feet of 5/8" Vinyl hose at Home Depot: ~$4.



Before:


After one or maybe two minutes. The soda just tore the varnish right off:






I took the hose taped to the angle steel and stuffed it into an 8 lb box of baking soda. The next step is to make a hopper out of a couple buckets and a funnel.

It didn't do a whole lot to the real rust on the two subframe bolts I have pictured, but it did clean the light surface rust off of the tips:


I can't even emphasize how sweet this is - no more spending two hours going through two or three cans of carb cleaner and brass brushes, while still leaving crap in the little crevices.