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Has anyone used a soda blaster to clean an engine prior to painting it.
There are several on the market and I am not sure which are worth considering because the only reviews I have seen are by the manufacturers and so they are a little biased when stating what their blasters are capable of.

Sorry - not me

nor i

i do have a soda stream though....

I've had a whisky and soda in the past!
(But not recently).
Never heard of this method, so cannot say more, but would worry about it taking the paint off the engine.
Then again, I suppose it may possiibly help clean the paint off an engine, which has lost some of the original paintwork, before re-painting.

Not tried whiskey and soda, but when driving in summer and we call in a pub somewhere i like lime and soda.
Very refreshing

There's a thread about soda blasting on another site I visit - most of the thread is banter and stuff but I'll put the link.

Upshot seems to be NBG.

http://www.mankymonkeymotors.co.uk/foru ... ic=8839.15

Oh if you get a blank screen just refresh - it's a glitch in the site.[/u]

As long as it's not caustic soda, or all your ally parts will dissolve

From what I've heard and read, soda blasting is expensive in terms of the blasting media - not to mention the cost of the blasting pot, compressor etc. etc. Unless you have a very large amount of stuff to do, it's almost always cheaper (and easier) to send it away to be done. It's also a very messy and quite noisy business.

One of the problems with soda is that once used it gets blown to smithereens and is not that reusable, unlike other media. A chap I know in Sheffield does blasting of Lambretta parts for a local dealer and I think he uses walnut shells (don't laugh!), as they don't damage delicate surfaces.

I had some old aluminium VFR parts vapour blasted a few months ago, and I could hardly recognise them from the grotty things I took in.

Thanks for the info,I am struggling to find any positive feed back for soda blasting.
The process looks good on paper but as you say it is expensive to buy the equipment and you would get through large quantities of soda at a pound a kilo.
I think if it was that good I would find a lot more evidence showing positive results.

archer wrote:Has anyone used a soda blaster to clean an engine prior to painting it.
There are several on the market and I am not sure which are worth considering because the only reviews I have seen are by the manufacturers and so they are a little biased when stating what their blasters are capable of.

no but I have used that sort of system to remove antifoul paint from my grp boat and it works really well. Easily controlled and non damaging.

Mind you my boat was done by a contractor so it wanst diy kit.