Man and blaster required Dept 24

[Penny29]

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a sandblaster in North 24 or South 87 (or East 19, come to that) - we have asked locally, checked the Yellow Pages etc but can only find hire shops for DIY and we actually need a man (or woman) to do the job.

 

[Thedunnes]

Penny

I hired the kit from BLS for 2 days.  Cost was reasonable, I have not got the invoice to hand but it was about £250.  I did have to go back on the second day to get more sand. 

If you don't want to do the job yourself, which I can understand as it was fairly tiring.  It was not difficult, but at the end of each day the bags of sand did start to get rather heavy.  It is also a two person job to unload the kit fro the car and the compressor which was towed behind the car was not what I would call light and considerable effort was needed to manoevre the thing to where it was needed.

If you can't find someone specifically with the equipment, I would suggest trying to find a competent builder as most of them in my experience are uesd to using the kit and they will hire the kit in for the job. 

My experience was that it was hard but very satisfying.  I now have several bags of used sand which will be used to blind the hardcore going into a patio that I am planning.

Stephen (19)

[Penny29]

Thanks Steve,

Our builders are going to do the blasting for us - although they are virgin blasters!!! What did you use yours for? Were you pleased with the result? Was it REALLY messy?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[Fleur]

Hi Penny

Our  neighbour  may have the rental equipment as that's what he does, hires out mini diggers, sanders etc, etc. We're not too far from you I seem to remember ( but lost all and any contact info)

Manxie

[Thedunnes]

Penny

I wanted to clean the beams in our cottage for two reasons.  Firstly in the original sitting room they were black with a couple of centuries of soot and the big beam of the inglenook fireplace had been painted a lovely shade of brown.  Second there is quite a bit of worm and I wanted to treat it all and I could not spray the timber as the soot is greasy and I would not have achieved a very good penetration with the xylophene.

In the other downstairs room I was just wanting to clean up the beams but the were not too bad, however the dirt made it hard to detect the eaten bits.

One problem is that where the wood has been eaten it is almost always where they had not bothered to clean the bark and "white" wood from the beam.  This what the wood worm actually like and by cleaning I was able to see the bad bits much more easily.  The blaster ripped the dirt off the good oak fantastically.  Where it was eaten it was less effective as the softer nature of eaten wood absorbed the energy of the sand and whilst it made an effect it did not clean as well as the good hard wood.

I have since been able to use an air chisel with a portable compressor to gradually and rather crudely remove the eaten wood back to good hard stuff. 

The rooms have been transformed and are much lighter as a result the fireplace is fantastic.  I do have a picture of the fireplace half done, but I have not mastered how to compress photo files and so the file is quite big, but if you would like me to try and send you a copy of the shot then just let me know. 

It is not hard work, but it is messy and for an unfit bloke like me.  A decent builder should be able to do the job with ease.  You do end up with and instant indoor beach and the stuff goes everywhere..  The area cleaned by the way was just under 60 sq m and it took me two days, including collecting the machine on the first morning, running out of sand at the end of day one, fetching more sand first thing and getting the machinery back beofer they closed at 18.00 that night.  We used 23 40 kilo sacks.  Looking at it we probably could have done some sand recycling but the one time I blocked the thing it took me half an hour to sort it out, so I decided against re-using any of the sand that was by now on the floor.

Am I pleased with the results?  An unqualified yes.  Would I do it again.  Yes but I am not in any hurry to.  The really satisfying thing is that the sand blasting was the last mucky job and now all the work is productive. Most of the wiring is now in and I even started to re-point the interior walls with lime which is interesting and much more physical than using the sand blaster.

Stephen (19)

[Penny29]

Thank you, Stephen,

Lots of information there - I await the blaster with trepidation now but at least forewarned is fore-armed, I'll let you kow how we get on.

[FatFreddie <P><FONT face="Lucida Handwriting" color=#80]

There's a sandblaster advertising on Artisan Anglais - www.artisan-anglais.com - they are called gk sandblasting, I think. It's a great site - anything and everything on there!