Grain Hopper Sand Blaster

Grain hopper sand blaster COMBINES Conversions 15-4-6 "I recently cut up an old Allis Chalmers pull-type combine to obtain extra steel for projects. When I got to the hopper it was in such good shape I decided I had to fmd a use for it," says David Kurowicki, Britten, Mich., who turned the old hop-per into a sand blaster for cleaning parts. "At that time I was restoring an antique John Deere tractor which needed a lot of sand blasting. Because there were so many small parts to clean up, I decided I needed a sand blast cabinet of my own to make it economical. A mid-size commercial sand blast cabinet cost $800 so I decided to build my own. The old grain hopper was almost identical in size to the commercial cabinet I'd been looking at. "I used angle iron off the scrapped combine to make legs and fitted a set of old lawn mower wheels to the back legs to make it easy to move around. Then I made a top door using sheet steel and angle iron, trimming around the inside edges with weather strip foam rubber for a good tight seal. I put a pipe plug in the bottom of the hopper to drain out the used sand and put a window and arm holes in the front side. The arm holes are just 4-in. plastic pipe that I pushed into the holes. I clamped some heavy rubber gloves over the ends of the plastic pipe with 4 1/2-in. hose clamps. The window is covered with plexiglass that I bought at a hardware store. "A switch controls a light inside the hopper and there's a plug-in for a shop vac to remove excess dust inside cabinet. "Inside the hopper I installed a wire mesh grate to set parts on. Any size mesh will work as long as sand can fall through to the bottom to be recycled. "A hand-held trigger gun and sand siphon tube which runs to the bottom of the hopper was purchased from a local tool supplier along with an air filter, pressure regulator and dryer - for moisture that could be in your air supply. Inside dimensions of the cabinet are 20 in. high, 36 in. wide and 25 in. deep. That's plenty of room to sand blast engine heads, implement wheels, kids toys, and all kinds of small parts. Total cost was $200." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, David A Kurowicki, 8770 Shaw Hwy., Britten, Mich. 49229.

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