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Is wet sand blaster good for hull cleanning?

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by truongluu, Jan 16, 2010.

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  1. truongluu, Jan 16, 2010
    #1
    truongluu

    truongluu New Member

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    Hi all!

    I'm thinking about buying a good wet sand blaster for my shipyard to blast off all of the rust and old paint from the steel hull. Some people told me dry sand blaster was better than the Wet, and the others told me about Soda Blaster. Can I get some advice about this? Which system is the most effective and economical for this kind of job? Thanks for reading!
  2. Fishtigua, Jan 16, 2010
    #2
    Fishtigua

    Fishtigua Senior Member

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    A wet blaster is good in a shipyard as it doesn't blow sand all over the yard and other boats.

    The weight of the water also stops the rust flying onto other boats nearby. Just make sure there are good tarpaulins covering around the hull when blasting.
  3. truongluu, Jan 17, 2010
    #3
    truongluu

    truongluu New Member

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    Thanks for your opinion. Can you advice me where to buy and how powerful it should be? I've contacted http://www.cmcpwe.com and http://www.pressurejet.com for the product and they said their products are strong enough for the job, but one man from the company daimer.com said that wet sand blaster is not powerful enough for clearing the rust from steel ships. It confused me so much.
  4. m2m, Jan 19, 2010
    #4
    m2m

    m2m Senior Member

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    A wet sandblaster is powerful enough for a steel boat, you may want to look into a high pressure washer (50,000-100,000 psi) as this machine would work for several different applications-ie; paint removal, wood deck removal, gelcoat removal, pipe cleaning etc. I have used this type of machine for all of these applications and many more.
  5. Henning, Jan 20, 2010
    #5
    Henning

    Henning Senior Member

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    I'd go straight water, skip the abrasive. Like This Type Unit

    I don't know what your pollution regulations now are, but these are the best way when you have to dispose of the blasted off waste as hazardous waste, then you don't want any sand since you pay for disposal by weight. With straight water (and these systems get white metal from crap) you work over a collection/retention/settling pond, you filter off the water and dry off the waste and load it out only paying disposal for the minimum you can. Regardless that though, for yard efficiency you eliminate so much clean up and masking time over abrasive blasting. When the boat is dry, it's ready for the next step all nice and clean.
  6. truongluu, Jan 21, 2010
    #6
    truongluu

    truongluu New Member

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    Thank M2m and Henning! The problem is that the water jet system is too expensive for me. I heard that wet sand blaster is cheaper.
  7. Henning, Jan 21, 2010
    #7
    Henning

    Henning Senior Member

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    It seems to me that as far as in why we do the blasting, wet abrasive would give you the worst of both worlds from a metallurgic standpoint with the advantage of dust control.

    Look at what the water jet systems are, they are basically just Gardner Denver pumps as are used in oilfields all over the world for heavy pumping. They use these to power to special tools. Perhaps you can buy the special tools from them and buy (or lease) a second hand pump from an oilfield supply company and stay within your budget.
  8. willowt, Jan 24, 2010
    #8
    willowt

    willowt New Member

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    Hull Cleaner

    You may want to look at this new technology. www.Coldjet.com

    The system uses dry ice and in my experience it is cleaner, very effective and leaves no media to clean up.

    The dry ice can get expensive but the overall payback in time saved and the cleanliness of the work makes it worth it.

    Cold Jet will gladly demonstrate the machine on your jobsite.