Portable Sandblaster Made From Combine Grain Tank

Portable Sandblaster Made From Combine Grain Tank FARM SHOP Tools 30-4-37 Bob Bugger, Effingham, Ill., made a sandblaster out of a salvaged combine grain tank. It's big enough to hold large parts and mounts on caster wheels so it's easy to move around. He started with a tapered grain tank off an old IH pull-type combine. He cut out one side of the tank to make an access door. An air-powered blast gun hooks up to an air compressor. A siphon hose runs from the gun down into a bucket of sand. An old squirrel cage fan clears away dust during sandblasting. Lights inside the tank provide light. Bugger cut a pair of holes into one side of the tank and lined them with plastic cut out of old 5-gal. buckets, then attached lengths of truck inner tubing to the plastic to keep sand from blowing up his sleeves. He mounted a big pipe on the bottom of the tank to pull sand out of the tank. Inside the tank is a big grate to hold parts, with screens below it for sifting out small pieces so they don't get into the sand. There's a large glass window above the access doors, with metal screen mounted just inside it to keep sand from scratching the glass. "It doesn't look pretty but it works well. I used mostly salvage parts so my total cost was less than $25," says Bugger. "I restore cars and tractors for a hobby, and I used the grain tank because I wanted a sandblaster that was big enough to fit a whole car front fender into. Most of the time I use it on small parts, which is why I installed two access doors on front. It's important to use a tank with a tapered bottom, because it will funnel all the sand to one place. "Switches mounted outside the tank are used to control the lights, blower, and shop vac. I can run the tube from the blower out the window to blow dust outside or, if I don't want to blow dust outside, I can hook up the shop vac to the blower. Electric plug-in oulets mounted on the tank allow me to operate other shop tools. To keep condensation out of the air lines, which might cause sand to plug them up, I mounted a quick-tach final water separator on one end of the line." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bob Bugger, 8971 E. 1025th Ave., Effingham, Ill. 62401 (ph 217 536-6516).

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