I decided to get myself a little harbor-freight sandblasting cabinet.
It took me a little time to get it put together properly, fix the stuff harbor freight did wrong, caulk it up, let it dry, repaint to cover the caulking, and allow to dry again (it’s been damp round here). Then I wrapped it in leftover automotive vinyl, partly to help seal it up even more, but mainly because I had this section of leftover automotive vinyl that was never gonna go anywhere but the trash.
The first glass I tried to blast was a learning experience. I went way too deep. The second one I did came out much better, but I was still having a few issues with overpowering the resist in areas.
Next I tried dialing down the power. Worked out all right.
I’m gonna need to make a light box to shoot these things, they get reflections from every direction. I tried to make that work to my advantage as I attempted doing a friend’s logos, but I was getting sleepy; it was a long day.
He was stoked on it, and some of his clients and fans have already been asking if they can buy them. So that is promising.
I’m still waiting on some actual sandblast resist to be delivered, so far I have just been using paint mask and sign-vinyl. The paint mask works ok for the glass where you don’t hit it with the blast media for very long at all. Address plaques are the only thing I had ever made sandblast-resists for in the past, so I tried making a board from some scrap white-pine offcuts, glued it up, and laid a paint mask stencil. White pine is not the correct material at all for a sandblasted sign, but for a practice exercise I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be able to totally ruin it and not feel bad. Had overspray on it already, so I figured I would go with a ‘weathered’ look.
I was able to get some depth before the resist was destroyed. The 70-grit black aluminum oxide blast media discolored my unsealed pine pretty badly, almost like black paint pigment (hmmm) so I washed the front with water and gojo, and it warped like I should have expected. Then I washed the back, let it dry overnight, and came back to find it pretty darned flat. So I painted in the letters, and cut an ‘oval’ with the jigsaw (poorly, geez, make a jig already) and hung it. 1st try out of the way.
Second try with wood I laid a double layer of the paint mask stencil on a solid piece of pine, and that worked a little better… but really I should be using cedar with sandblast-resist. Cleaned it, painted the whole thing black, and then came back with some silver.
Cool, now I have a little matched set to send to my buddy.
Then, after all that, I went online and looked up how to sandblast for the first time.